MORAL IDUCATION 

IN SCHOOL AND HOME 
ENGLEMAN 





Class _LlC ^^S 
BooklEjb 



Cop)Tigl[t]^'i 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



MORAL EDUCATION IN 
SCHOOL AND HOME 

BY 

J. O. ENGLEMAN, A.M. 

SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, DECATUR, ILLINOIS 

FORMERLY PRINCIPAL OF THE TRAINING SCHOOL DEPARTMENT OF THE 

INDIANA STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA 

AND STATE INSTITUTE CONDUCTOR AND HEAD OF 

THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, STATE 

NORMAL SCHOOL, LA CROSSE 

WISCONSIN 



ov TToW aXXa TToXv 



BENJ. H. SANBORN & CO. 

CHICAGO NEW YORK BOSTON 

I918 






Copyright, 1918, 
By BENJ. H. SANBORN & CO. 



SEP -3 1918 




©C1.A501633 





ao 



Anna Ulen Engleman 



TO WHOSE intelligent COUNSEL, SYMPATHETIC APPRECIATION 
AND SPIRIT OF SACRIFICE I HAVE BEEN UNDER CON- 
TINUOUS OBLIGATION FOR TWENTY YEARS 



PREFACE 

Though there is universal agreement that moral educa- 
tion is the supreme objective in public-school work, the 
literature dealing with this aspect of the work is not very 
extensive. Of the few books that have been written, 
the writer has not seen one that undertakes to analyze 
the possibilities for moral instruction or training in the 
everyday activities of the school. It seemed to the writer, 
therefore, that there is a distinct place for such a book in 
teachers' reading circles and in normal school and other 
courses for teacher-training. 

The writing of this book was undertaken, however, 
with a full appreciation of the difficulties involved in say- 
ing anything helpful to teachers or parents who are con- 
cerned with the problem of character-building in school 
and home. No claim is made for the discovery of any 
specifics, or any royal roads to the desired goal. Every 
child presents a new problem. Individual differences 
among children are so numerous that successful dealing 
with one is by no means a guarantee of success in dealing 
with another. Endless study, tact, sympathy, and char- 
ity are demanded of every teacher who would direct, guide, 
lead, or assist a child into the moral life which should be his. 

On the other hand, there are more elements of likeness 
than of difference among children. On the side of inherit- 
ance they all have instincts, impulses, and a psycho- 
physical organism attuned to a world of stimuli to which 
they must respond. In a given school they find those 
stimuli in the teacher, their classmates, their books and 
lessons. The character of the response they make from 



vi PREFACE 

day to day, and hence the character of the Ideas, Ideals, 
and habits they gradually build up in their own lives, is 
dependent, in a large measure, upon the point of view, the 
attitude, and the vision of the teacher. It was with this 
conviction and its attendant hope that within the book 
here submitted may be found something that will modify 
in helpful ways the attitude, the point of view, and the 
vision of teachers, that this book was written. 

The writer's long experience as a teacher In public 
schools, normal schools, and Sunday schools; his oppor- 
tunity to observe the work of hundreds of teachers in 
several states; and his more Immediate concern for the 
moral growth of his own boys and girls — ^ afford the back- 
ground for the book, nearly every page of which mirrors 
some of these experiences. 

While appropriate credit Is given to authorities con- 
sulted and quotations used, It is impossible to acknowledge 
the extent of the help that has come from twenty years 
of contact with teachers, ministers, and books. The 
writer is under an especial debt of gratitude to Dr. J. W. 
McDonald for encouragement and valuable suggestions 
given him during the writing of the manuscript. 

J. O. E. 

Decatur, Illinois 
August, 1918 



PAGE 
I 



CONTENTS 

Chapter I 

INTRODUCTION 

Revival of interest in moral education. Cooperation 
of social forces necessary. The Sunday school's lim- 
itations. Reciprocity of church and public schools. 
The new meaning of correlation. The point of view 
of the whole book. Its presupposition. Questions 
and suggestions. References for further reading. 

Chapter II 

THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL ii 

Bishop Huntington quoted. Ideals of antiquity. 
Formal discipline, knowledge, citizenship, utilitarian- 
ism as ideals. The Herbartians' view. Any modern 
aim must be composite to be adequate. Importance 
of character-building as an aim. Intellectual results 
that can be measured qualitatively and quantitatively. 
Where scientific tests are still inapplicable. Impcfr- 
tance of the parent's point of view. The teaching of 
religion not in place in public schools. France's expe- 
rience cited. Questions and suggestions. References 
for further reading. 

Chapter III 

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION . . 22 

Principles related to perception, formation of concepts, 
memorizing, judgment, and reasoning all involved. 
Modern theory of emotional life a factor. The James- 
Lange theory quoted. Altruistic versus egoistic feel- 
vii 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

ings. Practical methods of developing altruism. 
The place of instinct in moral training. Establishing 
habits of a moral sort the task of parent and teacher. 
Quotations from James et al. Laws of habit-forma- 
tion stated. The moral will as the highest expression 
of the moral life. Questions and suggestions. Refer- 
ences for further reading. 

Chapter IV 

MORAL TRAINING THROUGH THE EXAMPLE AND 

PERSONALITY OF THE TEACHER . . . .37 

Conscious versus unconscious tuition. The best thing 
a college does. Palmer's estimate of the ideal teacher. 
Hyde on personality. A lesson from Bonaventure. 
One from Domsie of Drumtochty. Doctor Strong's 
appeal to the honor of boys. Helen Keller and Miss 
Sullivan. Arnold of Rugby. The best teachers as 
seen by high-school students. Ruskin quoted. Im- 
portant qualities restated. Questions and suggestions. 
References for further reading. 

Chapter V 

MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 57 

Discipline as a means to an end. Its place among the 
school activities. An illustration. Popular estimate 
of the good disciplinarian. What constitutes good 
discipline. Its best guarantee. Teacher must not 
shirk unpleasant duties. Motives back of acts must 
be considered. Importance of self-control in the 
teacher. Punishment should be reformative, not 
retributive; must be suited to the individuality of the 
child. Arnold Tompkins quoted. Children profit by 
seeing their acts universalized. Corporal punish- 
ment sometimes necessary. Some forms of punish- 
ment to avoid. Spencer on punishment. The teach- 
ings of biology and psychology that have a bearing 
here. Questions and suggestions. References for 
further reading. 



CONTENTS ix 



Chapter VI 



PAGE 



MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH READING AND LIT- 
ERATURE 75 

The heritage of good books. Influence of the teacher's 
reading. Danger of.too much analysis. Three types 
of reading matter: the immoral, the unmoral, the 
moral, with examples and discussion of each. Impor- 
tance of discovering what children voluntarily read. 
A suggestive approach to the child who dislikes books. 
Questions and suggestions. References for further 
reading. 

Chapter VII 

MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY 90 

Opportunity for the exercise of the moral judgment. 
Old and newer conceptions of history. Moral rela- 
tionships writ large in the pages of history. Illus- 
trations. Moral elements involved in American 
history. Significance of personal examples of moral 
acts. Lecky's stress of the moral aspects of history. 
Froude quoted. Patriotism an outcome of history- 
teaching. Chauvinism to be avoided. America and 
the international spirit. Questions and suggestions. 
References for further reading. 

Chapter VIII 

MORALS THROUGH BIOGRAPHY .... 105 

Biography appeals to children who are outgrowing 
myths and legends. Influence of good men is dynamic. 
Avoid extreme censorship. History of education 
learned through lives of its reformers. The Bible 
made vital by its stories of great men and women. 
Clara Barton and the Red Cross. Florence Nightin- 
gale and the Crimean War. Frances Willard and her 
influence. Jacob Riis. Helen Keller. Dr. Grenfell. 
Questions and suggestions. References for further 
reading. 



CONTENTS 



Chapter IX 

PAGE 

MORAL TRAINING THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 119 

Moral qualities of a dynamic sort often characterize 
current incidents and characters. Discovery and use 
of the heroic around us. William James tells "What 
Makes Life Significant." Heroes in unromantic 
walks. A lesson from the sinking of the Titanic. 
Hypothetical cases illustrate a point. Cases of arson 
and bigamy and the lessons they taught. _ News- 
paper accounts of great disasters and calamities an 
opportunity for the expressive side of morality. Pes- 
talozzi's practical method of developing sympathy. 
Advice of George W. Childs. Seventh grade children 
study efficiency. Some lessons taught most effectively 
upon special days. The occasion of a strike as an op- 
portunity to teach the moral relationships of capital 
and labor. Objections to the use of current events 
answered. Teach children to read the daily papers. 
Questions and suggestions. References for further 
reading. 

Chapter X 

THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC 134 

Music has social values. It is the language of the 
emotions. It begets sympathy and understanding. 
Music a unifying agent among children. Music and 
patriotism. Music and religious worship. The effect 
of great oratorios. The function of the phonograph. 
Music in penal institutions. Danger of intellectualiz- 
ing music too much. Plato upon the place of music in 
educating children. The attitude of the psychologist 
towards it. Questions and suggestions. References 
for further reading. 

Chapter XI 

ART EDUCATION AND MORALITY . . . .147 

Art education rests upon an instinctive love of the 
beautiful. What makes art education moral educa- 



CONTENTS xi 

tion?^ The teacher's dress and her personal appear- 
ance in relation to art education. The influence of 
the schoolroom itself. Pictures with a moral content. 
Religion in art. Art for life's sake. Views of Ruskin, 
Caffin, and Griggs. Questions and suggestions. Ref- 
erences for further reading. 

Chapter XII 

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION THROUGH 

NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE . . . . i6i 
The moral aim not the chief aim in a study of nature 
or science. Reflex influence of their study upon nat- 
uralists. Huxley quoted. Love for nature gives 
wholesome direction to one's pleasures and hobbies. 
Specific results: higher regard for truth; accuracy 
of observation and fidelity in reporting; promotion 
of health; development of humane spirit; independ- 
ence of character; respect for law and order; ap- 
preciation of economic values; recognition of its rela- 
tion to medicine and the art of healing. War and 
science. Science in relation to the Deity. Questions 
and suggestions. References for further reading. 

Chapter XIII 
MORAL INSTRUCTION THROUGH MANUAL TRAINING 179 

Meaning of the phrase as used. Reasons for crediting 
*' outside work." Reformatories first to see moral 
values of work. Appeal to interests of children. A 
lesson from Tuskegee. Work in relation to sym- 
pathy and appreciation. Moral obligation of self- 
support. Labor a fortification against vice. The 
chief duty of man to minister. Questions and sug- 
gestions. References for further reading. 

Chapter XIV 

MORAL TRAINING THROUGH PLAY, PHYSICAL CUL- 
TURE, GAMES, AND ATHLETICS .... 193 
Attitude cf the Puritans. Influence of the "new psy- 



xii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

chology." Teachings of Plato, Aristotle, and Quin- 
tilian. Froebel's influence. Play and a physical 
basis for a sound morality. Play as a medium for the 
exhibit to teachers and parents of the fundamental 
strength or weakness of character. The playground a 
cradle of democracy. "Teamwork" in play as moral 
training. Moral and hygienic habits fostered by 
competitive games. Supervised playgrounds a neces- 
sity. Questions and suggestions. References for 
further reading. 

Chapter XV 

MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH VOCATIONAL DIREC- 
TION 208 

Modern schools undertake to train for life work. Va- 
rious methods used to give vocational direction. 
Basic moral requirements common to all vocations and 
professions. Temperance in relation to industry. 
Truthfulness and honesty essential everywhere. 
Courtesy a profitable virtue. Smoking in relation to 
success in life. Ethics of the medical profession. 
Secretarial requirements. A teacher's supreme need. 
Where initiative counts most. Industry as an asset. 
The ethics of work. Questions and suggestions. Ref- 
erences for further reading. 

Chapter XVI 

THE TEACHING OF THRIFT AS MORAL TRAINING 219 

Reasons for teaching of thrift. The duty of the 
schools. Relation of money to spiritual values. Prac- 
tical suggestions to teachers : investigation of motion 
picture habits; teaching the value of waste products; 
establishment of school savings system; promotion 
of home and school gardening, corn clubs, tomato 
clubs, pig clubs, calf clubs, etc. ; encouraging house- 
hold budgets ; showing the financial value of an educa- 
tion ; teaching the economic value of health ; using 
biography as an example of thrift. Questions and 
suggestions. References for further reading. 



CONTENTS xiii 



Chapter XVII 

PAGE 

SEX INSTRUCTION IN RELATION TO MORALITY . 241 

Consequences of sex-perversions. Changing attitude 
of parents and teachers. Shall mothers explain the 
origin of life ? Simple biological facts pertaining to 
reproduction. Sex hygiene for early adolescents. 
Personal honor to be developed. The testimony of 
physicians. Who shall give lessons in matters of sex ? 
Some accepted principles of sex instruction. Questions 
and suggestions. References for further reading. 

Chapter XVIII 

BOY SCOUTING AS A FACTOR IN MORAL EDUCA- 
TION 256 

Illustrations of cooperation between the schools and 
other educative agencies. Recognition of the Scout 
movement by the N. E. A. Relation of Scouting to 
formal school work. What Scouting means. The 
Scout Oath. The Scout Law. Illustrations of 
"good turns.*' Scouting as an example of expression 
in education. Questions and suggestions. References 
for further reading. 

Chapter XIX 

MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS . . . .268 
Question must be faced. Two types of pictures. 
Decatur's three experiments. Cooperation of com- 
mercial houses. Conclusions. Questions and sug- 
gestions. 

Chapter XX 
MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE . . 283 

The Bible as literature. Its influence upon literature. 
Objections to its use as a textbook. Examples of les- 
sons that may be used without giving offense : the im- 
portance of wisdom ; respect for parents ; industry and 



xiv CONTENTS 



laziness contrasted; sin of intemperance; mutual 
relationships illustrated ; who is my neighbor ? Biblical 
biographies. Method of use illustrated. Use of quo- 
tations. Lessons from the life of Jesus. Questions 
and suggestions. References for further reading. 

Chapter XXI 

MORAL LESSONS FROM THE EUROPEAN WAR . 300 
The value of physical preparedness. Sex-morality in 
relation to patriotism. Beneficent results already 
achieved : sacrifice, service, unity, revival of funda- 
mentals in religion, breaking down of sectarian bar- 
riers. The duty of the school. Questions and sug- 
gestions. References for further reading. 

Index 311 



MORAL EDUCATION IN 
SCHOOL AND HOME 

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION 

Morality is not something added to man; it is the 
man; and so morals is not a part of the course; it is 
the course. True moral teaching seeks to affect conduct 
indirectly by the general elevation of life. Whatever 
brings out the features of the soul, develops fully and 
harmoniously its powers and faculties, directs the aspir- 
ing self to the highest claims of manhood, frees and stimu- 
lates the ethical passion among the forces of man's nature, 
reveals to the individual the beauty and worth of char- 
acter, and inspires the soul with a passion for truth and 
righteousness that shall press towards absolute satis- 
faction, is moral teaching. 

With this view of the question it is easy to see how 
instruction in morals may find a place in the course of 
study; or to see that it matters little if it have no place; 
for the teacher who tones all his work to the moral key 
can afford to refuse it space on the program. 

Tompkins, Philosophy of Teaching, p. 267. 

Revival of interest in moral education. — One 

of the promising characteristics of the times is an 
awakening of interest in the moral and religious 



2 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

training of the child. To be sure there has always 
been more or less of interest in it, but too long it 
was sporadic, vague, and abortive. Here and there 
throughout the ages have been men and women 
with clear vision, keenly conscious that the moral 
habits and ideals of the child of today are the neces- 
sary precursors of the moral acts of the man and 
woman of tomorrow. But it has remained for the 
present day to witness an interest and a movement 
that are taking hold of the social conscience and 
social consciousness, and resulting in more definite 
and more purposeful steps in the formulation of a 
scheme of instruction and training that will leave 
less to accident and chance in this paramount phase 
of child development. A casual study of the pro- 
grams of educational meetings, national, state, and 
local, will show that within the past five years more 
time and attention have been given to a considera- 
tion of this topic than had been given it within the 
score of years preceding. Books and monographs, 
as well as addresses, have multiplied ; and leading 
social workers in church and Sunday school have 
taken hold of the problem with teachers in the effort 
to blaze a trail and find a way to make moral train- 
ing dynamic and effective. 

Cooperation of social forces necessary. — At 
this point probably lies the key to the success 
which may be reasonably expected in the difficult 
social task that confronts all who try to solve this 
problem. The duty is one which devolves upon 
the home, the church, and the state as well as the 
school. Cooperation and coordination of social 
forces and social efforts are necessary. No one 



INTRODUCTION 3 

organization and no single institution has a monopoly 
upon the child's life. No one of them can assume 
the whole responsibility ; and no one of them has 
a right to shirk its portion of the responsibility. 
The child's life can not be sectioned. It does not 
develop in watertight compartments. The whole 
child goes to school, to play, to movies, to church, 
in time to work, and always to its home for certain 
hours of every day. Its life is subject to influences 
every hour which leave their imprint upon it. 
Experiences in each of these situations may re- 
enforce the growing moral life of the child. Ex- 
periences in any one of them may tend to neutralize 
the good effects wrought by the others. An irrever- 
ent, irreligious teacher may do much to bring to 
nought the zeal and the devotion of a pious mother. 
Vulgarity and profanity on the playground may 
easily offset the wholesome influence of much moral 
instruction in church and home. Uncensored films 
in motion picture shows may poison childish im- 
agination beyond the antidotes offered by the best 
literature taught in the public schools. An un- 
developed social morality revealing itself in city 
ordinances that take little note of the pitfalls of 
boys — saloons, wine rooms, brothels, pool rooms, 
Sabbath desecration, etc., and in the appointment 
and continuance in ofl&ce of officials who wink at 
law-breakers and law-breaking — all of this makes 
infinitely more difficult the task of any individual 
or institution striving to teach and train children 
in habits and ideals of moral Hfe. 

The strength and Imiitations of the Sunday 
school. — Since the establishment of the Sunday 



4 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

school as an almost universal adjunct of the church 
in America there has been a sort of tacit assumption 
that the moral and religious education of children 
could safely be left to it ; but there are two excellent 
reasons why the Sunday school can not justify such 
confidence. First, there are even today thousands 
of children who never go to Sunday school at all. 
They must, as a result, miss most of the wholesome 
influence radiating from this center. Unfortunately, 
the children who seldom or never go to Sunday 
school belong to homes in which the parents have 
but slight interest in the moral habits of their chil- 
dren. Thus it often comes about that homes which 
need most the help the Sunday school can give, get 
nothing from it. 

But second, the Sunday school of the past has 
been far less effective as a moral and rehgious in- 
strument than it was thought to be. It was founded 
upon excellent faith with the best of intentions, but 
rested upon a poor psychological foundation. The 
thousands of children who were fortunate enough 
to come within its portals got less than their deserts 
because it did not adapt its teachings to their needs 
and their interests. 

It may not be in place to point out here the short- 
comings of the Sunday school, but its best friends 
today admit its relative failure in the past because 
its teachers lacked pedagogical insight; its course 
of study was ill adapted to the interests of children; 
and its rooms and equipment were almost wholly 
unsuited to the requirements of good teaching. 
All of this is slowly changing today. The most 
progressive schools are demanding teachers who 



INTRODUCTION 5 

not only know the Bible, but know children as well. 
Sunday-school teaching, to be effective, needs to 
be done in the light of child psychology, and by 
teachers who can bring to their task the same sort 
of methodology that has a place in the best public 
schools. Graded lessons, adapted to the interests 
of children of different ages, with different dominant 
instincts and tendencies, are finding more and more 
favor. Church edifices are rapidly changing to 
afford separate classrooms, in which the attention 
of the pupils will not need to be distracted by a con- 
fusion of voices. Blackboards and maps and charts 
and other helps are being utilized to make possible 
more visualization in the process of teaching and 
learning. In other words, the Sunday school of this 
day is powerfully influenced by the secular schools, 
which have been away in advance of the churches 
in their ready application of the principles of psy- 
chology and pedagogy to their teaching processes. 

Reciprocity of churches and public schools. — 
But even this is not enough. The past two or 
three years have developed the well-defined belief 
that ways must be found for standardizing the 
moral and religious instruction of public school 
children, and for reaching all of them who are 
reached by the public schools. The North Dakota 
plan, the Colorado plan, the Gary plan, and the 
Indiana plan are all plans looking towards the 
standardization and universalizing of this phase of 
the child's education. Their significance Hes in 
the fact that they indicate a growing sense of the 
importance of this teaching ; and a no less growing 
recognition of the need of cooperative effort upon 



6 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

the part of church and home and pubHc school 
in doing it effectively. In so far as the pubHc 
schools have become the leaders in this move- 
ment, they have become so because their leaders 
have become actuated by the same high aims and 
purposes of the Sunday school, and have come to 
see that the life of the child is *' more than meat " 
and its " body more than raiment/' In other 
words, while the church and Sunday school have 
recently become debtors to the public schools for 
methods, principles, teachers, and even classrooms 
and equipment, the public schools have become or 
are becoming debtor to them for lofty purposes and 
high moral aims in the accomplishment of their 
tasks. Such reciprocity and exchange augurs well 
for both, and for the child that needs the tuition of 
both. 

New meaning of correlation. — Two decades ago 
the watchword of pedagogy was correlation. The 
same idea was expressed by the term concentration 
and by coordination. The idea was to correlate 
all schoolroom teaching around some central or 
pivotal subject which was considered by its advo- 
cates to be the one subject of supreme importance 
in child development. Some found in history, some 
in literature, and some in still other subjects, the 
backbone of all important curricula. No such 
scheme succeeded in accomplishing all that was 
claimed for it, and there has long since ceased to be 
any such correlation of subjects as was once urged ; 
but the idea of correlation has survived. Today, 
however, it is a correlation of institutional efforts 
that demands our attention. How to join hands 



INTRODUCTION 7 

with other agencies and utiHze all that they can con- 
tribute in furthering the work of the public schools 
is a problem for all concerned in their administra- 
tion. Parent-teacher associations, associations of 
commerce, factories, department stores, physicians, 
dentists, art leagues, musical societies, farmers' 
institutes, libraries, churches, Sunday schools, 
women's clubs, old settlers' associations — all of 
these and many more are capable of touching the 
life of a child in helpful ways, and the school of the 
future will do its best work only as it learns how to 
appropriate and to correlate the educational assets 
of these agencies and institutions. The effort to 
expand the scope of moral instruction of school 
children, and to coordinate the teachings and in- 
fluences of those agencies and institutions which 
have a bearing upon the morals of children, is but 
a part of this larger present-day movement. 

But while we are witnessing, and even sharing 
in, such an extensive movement, the school is com- 
pelled to intensify its own endeavors as a part of 
the larger program. This is a logical outcome of 
the new dignity and new responsibility which schools 
everywhere must bear as the school day and school 
year grow longer, and as " all the children of all 
the people " are being brought into the schools and 
kept there, not only throughout a longer school year, 
but through more years than they were once kept. 

The point of view of the whole book. — Indeed, 
the schools are passing through a stage in which 
not only their organization and methods are being 
challenged, but they are being asked to justify the 
content of their courses of study. That which can 



8 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

not be justified must be banished. Subject matter 
is being weighed in the Hght of its possible contribu- 
tion to the needs of the child. These needs are be- 
ing analyzed as never before. Certain of them are 
physical, others are intellectual, some are spiritual. 
Again, it is recognized that a child's education in- 
volves a certain minimum fund of information which 
experience has shown to be universally desirable; 
it involves the formation of a number of habits which 
give poise and balance and stability to character,, 
and insure reaction of the desirable sort to most 
situations of life ; and finally it includes ideals 
which ennoble and attract and inspire, and do much 
to insure that his life will be lived on a high moral 
plane, not guaranteed at all by intellectual training 
alone. The good teacher finds it necessary in every 
subject and every lesson to consider the limitations 
and needs of her class, and to ask herself what a 
proposed lesson has to give along these lines. In- 
asmuch as few needs are more pronounced than 
development of moral fiber, it is important for 
teachers to realize the fact itself, and then to see, as 
clearly as they may, just how to utilize to the maxi- 
mum for moral ends the various lessons and other 
school experiences which may be employed for other 
purposes. In other words, since our curricula are 
necessarily crowded, and since there is by no means 
general agreement that a specific course in moral 
training or ethics would be the surest means of in- 
fluencing character, it is well to see what can be 
done for character with the ordinary subjects of 
instruction and the common experiences of the 
elementary school. Assuming that character is a 



INTRODUCTION 9 

by-product, and one most likely to be secured when 
something else is made the school's objective point, 
it may still be lost, in large measure, as valuable 
b^r-products were long lost in processes of manu- 
facture until their value was at last recognized, and 
ways discovered whereby they might be secured 
without neglect of the products of earlier major 
concern. 

Presupposition of the book. — The chapters of 
this book are therefore written to direct the atten- 
tion of the young teacher to ways and means of 
utilizing as largely as possible the potential moral 
values of the school as an institution ; and to ex- 
hibit, so far as we can, the moral aspects of the 
conventional subjects of instruction, and of the 
various activities comprising the life of the school. 
A presupposition of the whole book is that there is 
a rich moral content in literature, history, and 
biography; that discipline, study, manual training 
courses, and playground activities may be made to 
contribute largely to the moral development of 
pupils ; and, in fact, that the school needs to be 
thoroughly moral in its every aspect, and the teacher 
needs to see how to make its several phases of study, 
recitation, work, and play minister to the unfolding 
moral life of the child without the necessity of 
adding a specific course in morals to an already 
overcrowded curriculum. 

Questions and Suggestions 

I. What evidence can you cite that there is greater 
interest in either moral or religious education than there 
was years ago ? 



lO MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

2. Distinguish between moral training and the teaching 
of morals. 

3. List the organizations of your community which are 
cooperating more or less fully with the schools, and show 
wherein they are influencing the moral life of children. 

4. What has the legislature to do with moral training? 
Can you cite any act of your last legislature that has a 
bearing upon the moral life of children ? If so, show its 
bearing. 

5. Distinguish between moral instruction and moral 
training. 

6. Assuming the supreme importance of the moral 
training of children, what reasons can you assign for not 
giving it a specific place upon the daily school program .? 

; References for Further Reading 

Carlton, Frank Tracy : Education and Industrial Evolution : 

The Relation between Educational Advance and Industrial 

Progress, chapter in. Macmillan Co. 
DeGarmo, Charles : Moral Training through the Common 

Branches, in Proceedings of the N. E. A. 1894, pp. 165-173. 
Dewey, John : Democracy in Education : Theories of Morals, 

chapter xxvi. Macmillan Co. 
McMuRRY, Chakles a. : Conflicting Principles in Teaching, 

chapter xiii. Houghton Mifflin Co. 
Peabody, Francis G. : The Christian Life in the Modern 

World. Macmillan Co. 
Strayer and Norsworthy : How to Teach : The Development 

of Moral Social Conduct, chapter xi. Macmillan Co. 



CHAPTER II 
THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL 

To rear men fit and ready for all spots and crises, 
prompt and busy in affairs, gentle among little children, 
self-reliant in danger, genial in company, sharp in a jury- 
box, tenacious at a town meeting, unseducible in a crowd, 
tender at a sick-bed, not likely to jump into the first 
boat at a shipwreck, affectionate and respectful at home, 
obliging in a traveling party, shrewd and just in the 
market, reverent and punctual at the church, not going 
about, as Robert Hall said, "with an air of perpetual 
apology for the unpardonable presumption of being in 
the world", nor yet forever supplicating the world's 
special consideration, brave in action, patient in suffering, 
believing and cheerful everywhere, fervent in spirit, serv- 
ing the Lord. Huntington. 

Ideals of antiquity. — Different ages and different 
nations have had many different educational ideals, 
as any study of the history of education will easily 
show. The Chinese ideal was long one which almost 
deified the past. Ancestor worship, walking in the 
beaten paths, conservation of the practices and 
customs of antiquity, were all factors in it which 
determined the content and the methods of Chinese 
education. The Hebrews had an ideal much akin 
to it; but believing themselves a peculiar people, 
especially favored by Jehovah, with a deeply religious 



12 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

consciousness, a quality that has indeed character- 
ized still other Semitic peoples, their ideal was essen- 
tially religious. It, too, left its mark upon every- 
thing connected with the education of their chil- 
dren. The Greeks, and especially the Athenians, 
held to culture as the worth-while mark of a free 
people. No other people, therefore, whether in an- 
cient or modern times, have done more to develop 
a capacity for intellectual and aesthetic enjoyment 
of leisure than they. When the dark ages began to 
give way before the light of the Renaissance in art 
and letters, it was the Greek ideal that once more 
began to shape the hfe of Middle Age Europe. Law, 
order, strength, and efficiency were factors in the 
early Roman ideal which found expression and sup- 
port in Roman life and Roman schools. 

Ideals of later times. — Discipline of the mental 
faculties is a later term for an educational ideal that 
long held sway, and determined much of educational 
practice until recent times. Indeed the so-called 
dogma of formal discipline did not release its powerful 
hold and begin to lose favor as an educational ideal 
until the rise of modern experimental psychology and 
the scientific study of education of the last decade. 

Knowledge as a dominant ideal was popularized by 
such writers as Bacon, Locke, and Comenius. While 
the field of human knowledge was small enough to 
make its mastery a reasonable hope for a brilliant 
mind, there was justification for the large place 
long given to this ideal. Today, however, it would 
require a lifetime to complete all the courses offered 
in one of our great universities, to say nothing of 
the advance being made in most of them, an advance 



^ THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL 13 

which the most ambitious student could not keep 
abreast of, in more than one or two Hnes. 

Citizenship as an end of education is a popular 
word, and has been since Plato wrote his Utopian 
Republic, but no man has done more in America 
than Horace Mann to exalt citizenship as an educa- 
tional ideal and to impress his countrymen with the 
truth that the common schools are the hope of our 
country. So long as the divine right of kings to 
rule is unchallenged, it makes relatively little dif- 
ference whether any citizens other than the rulers 
are highly educated or not; but among a people 
who look upon every common man or woman as 
having all the potential rights and duties of a sov- 
ereign, training for citizenship becomes a paramount 
duty, and few ideals can have a more important place 
in the thought of the nation than this one has. 

Utilitarianism is a present-day concept which is 
occupying a more prominent place in our thinking 
than it is ultimately to fill, because its claims must 
be exaggerated to give it the hearing to which it is 
honestly entitled. Its advocates have already per- 
formed valuable service in jarring the nation loose 
from its reliance upon books, visions, and culture, 
and teaching with Longfellow that '' life is real, life 
is earnest," and that it is the business of the schools 
to prepare boys and girls, even those who must leave 
school early, for this reality. Breadwinning, self- 
support, work, support of dependent ones, these are 
parts of the reality of Hfe for every one, and the child 
who faces this fact and prepares for it, other things 
being equal, is going to become a more valuable citi- 
zen and a happier man than one who does not. 



14 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Character-building as the end of education is a 
phrase which while perhaps not introduced by the 
Herbartians has been given an exalted place by them. 
Indeed no other conception of the aim of education 
seems to us so closely to identify it with the Chris- 
tian view of the end or aim of life itself. The de- 
velopment of moral character involves of necessity 
the development of the hand and the head, but it 
makes such development accessory and not funda- 
mental, subsidiary and not ultimate. Intelligence 
and practical skill are not incompatible with moral 
character but may exist without it. The thousands 
of men who have been most successful, as judged by 
mere practical and utilitarian standards, the other 
thousands who have been among the intellectual 
elite, but void of moral fiber, are eloquent witnesses 
of this truth. Even Socrates made the mistake of 
confounding knowledge and virtue. It does not at 
all follow that the man who knows will be the virtu- 
ous man. The heart does not always respond when 
the head assents. " Character is the disposition of 
a person's will," and will may be strong in nega- 
tive directions, when the intelligence alone would 
sanction an opposite course. Every jail and every 
prison contains numerous men who have made ship- 
wreck of life because their wills were weak or bad. 
No wonder the philosopher Kant was able to say 
that " the only absolutely good thing in the world 
is a good will." 

Any modern aim must be composite. — The pre- 
ceding paragraphs have doubtless already suggested 
to the reader that our educational aim must needs 
be composite to be adequate; that every separate 



THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL 15 

ideal mentioned above has a place as a factor in the 
product at which we aim ; and that no one of them 
could be omitted without loss. Such a view is surely 
correct. The difficulty is that of seeing them in 
balanced relations. A proper sense of proportion 
is not an easy sense to cultivate in any field. Most 
of us are Ukely to mistake half-truths for the whole 
truth ; and to permit the good to become the enemy 
of the best. This tendency in man has delayed 
progress in every field of endeavor throughout his- 
tory. In educational circles we have been particu- 
larly prone to this error. But the young teacher 
will do well to survey the aims and ideals enumer- 
ated above and ask herself what one she can afford 
to ignore. She may find it profitable to inquire, too, 
whether the last named is really comprehensive 
enough and far-reaching enough to justify more 
thinking and more teaching in the effort to translate 
it into reality in the lives of her pupils. 

Every true soldier feels that death is preferable 
to disgrace or dishonor on the field of battle. This 
is only another way of saying that a soldier develops 
a character which sets a certain type of morahty 
above hfe itself. Most right-thinking parents love 
their own children so well that they gladly make 
almost any sacrifice for them, if sacrifice is neces- 
sary, but there are few Christian parents who would 
not think even an honorable death of their child a 
less grievous calamity than the Hfe of their child 
lived in shame and disgrace. In other words, as 
dear as the life of our loved ones is normally regarded, 
and as bitter as. death is thought to be, there is 
something more bitter to most of us, and that is 



1 6 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

the grossly immoral life. If teachers could only get 
this point of view, there are some things which they 
find it easy to ignore that would loom large on the 
horizon of their teaching ; and there are other things 
which cause them most anxiety and effort that would 
as surely be treated less seriously. 

Intellectual results measured qualitatively and 
quantitatively. — There are certain intellectual re- 
sults rightly expected in the classroom that admit of 
qualitative and even fairly accurate quantitative 
measurement. This is especially true of all that has 
made its appeal chiefly to memory. The very ease 
with which these results have been measured and 
the extreme difficulty of measuring growth in moral 
lines have been responsible for stressing the one 
and slighting the other in the schoolroom. I can 
determine whether my ' child knows more history 
today than he knew yesterday or not. I do not 
find it easy to ascertain whether he has made cor- 
responding growth in moral character. So I find 
myself tempted as a teacher to labor for results in 
the realm whose results are measurable ; and trust to 
luck for satisfactory results in the less tangible sphere. 

Where scientific tests are still inapplicable. — 
Scientific tests and standard measurements are doing 
much today to enable teachers to ascertain the 
effectiveness of their own teaching, so far as it has 
to do with a mastery of the fundamental operations 
in arithmetic; with the establishment of a habit in 
writing; with an incorporation of certain conven- 
tional modes of sentence and paragraph structure in 
composition, and with power to interpret and express 
the thought of a printed page. These tests may be 



THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL 1 7 

perfected and others worked out to apply to still 
other subjects, and other phases of the same sub- 
jects ; but at present it must be admitted that it is 
almost impossible to estimate from year to year a 
child's growth in ideals, in honor, in altruism, in the 
graces or even the more homely virtues which form 
constituent parts of the thing we call moral character. 
But the teacher must guard against the thought that 
this supreme object of school endeavor is of second- 
ary importance because its exact measurement is 
either difficult or impossible. 

The time may never come when it will be possible 
to forecast or even later to determine the effect of a 
song which touches the heart, a picture which stirs 
the emotions, a poem which makes Ufe better for 
its readers; but we shall continue to profit by 
these forms of art, even though we may not know 
to what extent we profit. In Hke manner we shall 
continue to enrich and ennoble character through 
the processes of the school even though we_ can not 
ascertain the rate of growth in this direction from 
day to day or even from year to year. 

Importance of the parent's point of view. ~ It is 
well for us as teachers to get a parent's point of 
view that we may exalt character-building to its 
proper place in the category of educational aims. 
No normal father or mother can fail to find positive 
satisfaction in their child's growing scholarship, in 
his mental development, in his improved language 
habits, and other logical outcomes of school work; 
but it is to be doubted whether any of these results 
is comparable in parental pleasure to the increas- 
ing evidence of habits of industry, cleanliness, truth- 



1 8 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

telling, honesty, kindness, punctuality, temperance, 
justice, chastity, politeness, consideration for the 
rights of others, chivalrous regard for girls and 
women, respect for the aged and infirm, reverence for 
all things sacred and holy increasingly exhibited in 
the conduct of their children. In other words, 
parents are supremely concerned with the ethical 
code and conduct of their boys and girls. In their 
most thoughtful moments they are vastly more 
anxious to see their sons and daughters become men 
and women uncorrupted and uncorruptible, of a fine 
sense of personal honor, with habits and ideals that 
will admit them into the inner circles of the world's 
best men and women — more anxious to witness this 
consummation of their hopes and prayers than to 
see any other possible outcome in the education of 
their children. 

This, therefore, is only another way of saying that 
the school, through its teachers, needs to give a more 
prominent place to character-building in its daily 
work. Knowledge, scholarship, culture, intellectual 
strength — these are all good and worthy educational 
ends, but dearly bought if character is sacrificed in 
their pursuit, and at best but poor substitutes for 
the riches of character which constitute the highest 
goal of school endeavor. Whether we think of edu- 
cation from the standpoint of the citizen of our 
democracy and the elements of training most needed 
to aid him in using his citizenship most wisely ; from 
the standpoint of the future practical man with a 
so-called bread-and-butter aim imposed by stern 
necessity ; or from the standpoint of one who wishes 
to get the most refined enjoyment out of his leisure 



THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL 19 

through a hberal acquaintance with music, letters, 
and art, it is still true that character is the summum 
honum, and the best guarantee against such civic 
monstrosities as Benedict Arnold, such anarchistic 
workers as comprise the leadership of the I. W. W., 
and such cultured immoral aesthetes as Thaw and 
White of recent unsavory renown. 

The teaching of religion not in place in public 
schools. — No plea is here made for religious teach- 
ing, or rather for the teaching of religion, in the pub- 
lic schools. And we are not confusing moral instruc- 
tion with instruction about morals. Theories of con- 
duct and a philosophy of either religion or ethics can 
have no place in elementary schools ; but even a 
great nation like France, sometimes thought to be a 
godless nation, assumes ^ that there is " an A B C 
of the conscience," that " the early teaching of those 
primordial elements of morality are not less indis- 
pensable than the teaching of language and arith- 
metic, and that it is a national duty to transmit pure, 
intact, and complete these first notions which are at 
the basis of all the moral and social order." For 
more than thirty years, therefore, France has pro- 
vided a place for moral instruction in its public 
schools. We may not wish to emulate the example 
of France in the method we use, but cannot err in 
ascribing to morality the same high place in the social 
order which that country gives it, and in using the 
schools with a conscious purpose to transmit it as a 
paramount factor in the patrimony of mankind to 
every child. 

^ Ferdinand Buisson, Commander in the Legion of Honor, Paris, 
France. In an address before the N. E. A., Oakland, Cal., 1915. 



20 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 



Questions and Suggestions 

1. Is the educational ideal of any people or epoch a 
cause or an effect of the national ideal of that people and 
period ? Illustrate your answer with a number of ex- 
amples. 

2. What constant factor do you find running through 
all the aims of education which history has recorded ? 

3. Illustrate some of the changed conceptions of social 
and moral rights and obligations; i.e., labor, woman's 
rights, temperance, slavery, the "double standard" of 
sex-relationship, international consciousness. How do 
these changed conceptions express themselves in our 
schools ? 

4. In what respect is Germany's system of education 
worthy of our emulation ? What makes it a terrible 
warning to us ? 

5. What educational tendency today suggests a dan- 
gerous weakness exhibited by the Phoenicians of Ancient 
History ? 

6. Discuss the aim of education as stated by Hunting- 
ton, showing what parts of it seem to stress the intellec- 
tual ; the moral ; the religious ; the aesthetic ; the physical. 
Wherein is it strong } Wherein weak or inadequate ? 

7. Compare "Education is preparation for complete 
living" with "Education is participation in complete 
living." 

8. Keeping In mind the healing, the teaching, and the 
preaching of the Great Teacher, what suggestion do you 
find for teachers today in his words, "I came that you 
might have life and have it more abundantly" } 

9. Is morality as we understand it strengthened by 
the Christian religion ? The Jewish ^ Can you say the 
same thing for other religions .? 

10. Show how our entrance into the European War is 
affecting our educational ideals. 



THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL 21 

References for Further Reading 

Bagley, William C. : The Educative Process : The Ethical 
Aim of Education, chapter iii. Macmillan Co. 

CuBBERLEY, Ellwood P.: Changing Conceptions ot Educa- 
tion. Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Davenport, Eugene: Education for Efficiency, chapters v 
and VI. D. C. Heath & Co. 

Dewey, John : Democracy in Education, chapters vii, viii, ix. 

Macmillan Co. ^ , ^, r^ i r r^u 

Jones, Lewis : Education as Growth, or The Culture ot Char- 
acter. Ginn & Co. ^m • ^ 
King, Irving: Education for Social Efficiency, chapter ii. 
D. Appleton & Co. 



CHAPTER III 

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION 

Psychological principles of the learning process 
involved. — If the presupposition of this book is a 
sound one, 2.^., that moral education may best be 
effected through the ordinary activities of the school 
rather than by means of didactic teaching of morals, 
or a formal course in ethics, the psychology of its 
teaching is not different from the psychology of 
teaching in general. In so far as purely intellectual 
processes are involved in moral instruction, and the 
psychological principles related to sense-perceiving, 
formation of concepts, memorizing, judgment, and 
reasoning are to be observed, almost any of the 
textbooks used in the teaching of general educational 
psychology will be found sufficiently helpful as a 
guide. 

Modern theory of emotional life a factor. — Again, 
moral education can never be divorced from an educa- 
tion of the emotional hfe. Hence, any textbook which 
makes sufficiently clear the part which the feelings 
of pleasure and pain have to perform in education 
and life may be used with profit by the teacher who 
would deal wisely with the moral life of her pupils. 
The James-Lange theory of the emotions, at least 
in a modified form, is so nearly universally accepted 
by psychologists and thoughtful teachers today, 

22 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION 23 

and it has such a bearing upon the moral education 
of children in home and school, that it should be- 
come familiar to every teacher in the elementary 
schools, and every parent as well. Very few psy- 
chological principles can be observed with greater 
profit, either in the wise discipline and treatment 
of a child, or in the self-control of an adult who 
tends to be dominated by his coarser emotions. 
Its practical application to behavior is perhaps 
nowhere better stated than in the words of James 
himself. 

The James-Lange theory quoted. — " Refuse to 
express a passion, and it dies. Count ten before 
venting your anger, and its occasion seems ridiculous. 
Whistling to keep up courage is no mere figure of 
speech. On the other hand, sit all day in a moping 
posture, sigh, and reply to everything with a dismal 
voice, and your melancholy lingers. There is no 
more valuable precept in moral education than this, 
as all who have experience know : if we wish to 
conquer undesirable emotional tendencies in our- 
selves, we must assiduously, and in the first instance 
cold-bloodedly, go through the outward movements 
of those contrary dispositions which we prefer to 
cultivate. The reward of persistency will infallibly 
come, in the fading out of the sullenness or depres- 
sion, and the advent of real cheerfulness and kindli- 
ness in their stead. Smooth the brow, brighten 
the eye, contract the dorsal rather than the ventral 
aspect of the frame, and speak in a major key, pass 
the genial compliment, and your heart must be 
frigid indeed if it do not gradually thaw ! " ^ 
^ Principles of Psychology y Vol. H, p. 463. 



24 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Altruistic vs. egoistic feelings. — Among other 
things the development of moral character must 
involve the cultivation of the altruistic feehngs as 
opposed to the merely egoistic ones. Through 
concrete illustrations unselfishness must be made 
attractive and selfishness repulsive. Such illustra- 
tions in abundance may be found in life, in history, 
in literature, and in art. Children can profit by 
a consideration of the Christian attitude towards 
the weak, the unfortunate, and the helpless, in con- 
trast to pagan ideals and practices in this realm. 
Our charities, benevolences, and asylums are all 
in marked contrast with the custom of the ancient 
Spartans, according to which, e.g., weak, sickly, or 
deformed infants were exposed and left to die if 
they gave no promise of growing up strong and 
independent and able to make a contribution to the 
state. The modern Christian state spends its 
substance much more freely upon the afflicted — 
the blind, the deaf and dumb, the insane, the feeble- 
minded, the indigent, than upon its normal citizens. 

Practical methods of deveioping altruism. — Red 
Cross societies, associated charities, the Salvation 
Army, free clinics, hospitals, Y. M. C. A. and 
Y. W. C. A., missionary societies, and numerous 
other organizations are institutionalized expressions 
of the altruistic impulses and feelings of man. 
School children develop this side of their nature 
partly through an acquaintance with the work done 
by such organizations, but more effectively through 
participation in such work. Hence it follows that 
children, for their own sake, should be permitted 
to have a share in the v>^ork of relief that is under- 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION 25 

taken by adult organizations out of school. Floods, 
tornadoes, fires, famines, pestilence, war — all great 
calamities which bring great need of relief to suffer- 
ing peoples and grip the sympathies of men and 
women, are occasions for cultivating the moral hfe 
of children in the public schools and should be so 
used. If psychology teaches anything it is that 
through action, through deeds of mercy, through 
service, the moral hfe is quickened. When al- 
truistic impulses and feelings are given adequate 
and legitimate expression the cycle of moral hfe 
is made complete, and not until then. " No im- 
pression without expression " is a psychological 
truism in pedagogy, but it seems especially pertinent 
in the moral realm. For children to fill baskets for 
the poor at Thanksgiving time or Christmas; for 
them to contribute to the relief of a neighboring 
city devastated by a tornado; for schools to take 
up collections for Armenian reUef; for boys m the 
manual training department to work extra hours, 
even, in making boxes and spUnts, and for girls m 
sewing classes to make bandages for use in Red 
Cross work ; for whole classes and schools to deny 
themselves candy or ice cream or the movies or 
something else for a Umited time that their savings 
may be used for some charitable, benevolent, or 
philanthropic purpose, is to give them moral train- 
ing based upon sound psychological principles. 

The place of instinct in moral training. — if we 
remember that character-building is essentially a 
matter of will rather than mere intelhgence, then 
the field of psychology having the greatest bearing 
upon it at once becomes more obvious. We shall 



26 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

need to look to its roots and springs in instincts 
and impulses. The place of suggestion needs to 
be understood. The nature and bearings of interest 
and effort, of voluntary and of involuntary atten- 
tion, are of major concern to the teacher. Finally, 
and perhaps of greatest importance, the psychology 
of habit must guide the teacher in her work. 

To amplify this phase of our subject would unduly 
lengthen this chapter. Our treatment here can be 
little more than suggestive. The teacher should 
consult some of the numerous books which treat 
the subject of instinct, impulse, attention, and 
habit more fully. 

If we take the psychology of instinct we may 
ask ourselves : How can the elementary school 
teacher apply it to the problem of moral education 
— either training or instruction .? Kirkpatrick, in 
his Fundamentals of Child Study, devotes eight 
chapters to instincts, and much that he says in 
these chapters has a direct bearing upon the answer 
to our question. Perhaps the most pointed answer, 
briefly stated, can be given in the words of Home, 
who suggests that the teacher's business is neither 
to neglect, nor oppress, nor extirpate, nor instruct 
instincts, but to direct their expression toward 
legitimate objects : 

"To apply this principle to some of the commoner and 
more representative instincts. Children are naturally 
constructive .r' Then provide courses in manual training 
and domestic science. Children are full of play .? Then 
provide ample recesses and good games, and recognize 
play as a legitimate educator and not as a necessary 
waste of time. Children are acquisitive } Then provide 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION 27 

shelves for natural history specimens, encourage collec- 
tions of stamps, pictures, flowers, etc. Children obey 
the group or gang impulse ? Then let home and school 
unite in organizing proper bands and clubs. Children 
have a curiosity surpassing that of any creature .? Then 
answer patiently their question *Why.?' as far as they 
are able to comprehend, and suggest further related 
questions to engage and develop their interest. Children 
have primitive fears .? Arouse them, not by hobgoblin 
stories, but make the unavoidable consequences of wrong- 
doing such as justly to excite their fear. Children so 
easily fly into a passion .? When the fury is past, show 
the boy some wrong inflicted upon the innocent, and let 
his anger kindle as a flame to right it. Children are 
secretive .? Agree with them to keep all evil reports 
about another. Children are so emulous of each other ? 
Confront each one with his own weak past self to excel. 
They are envious of another's good fortune I Point to 
some man of good character as having the best treasure 
and secure hero-worship. And so on through the list. 
Study the instincts of children ; catch them in the act, 
and direct them toward a legitimate object. To do so 
skillfully is actually to fashion the good will.'' ^ 

Establishing habits of a moral sort the task of 
parent and teacher. — If there is one aspect of 
moral education more than another concerning 
which psychology may be expected to speak with 
assurance, it is habit. Here we are upon familiar 
ground. Morality is for the most part a matter 
of habit, in thought, in speech, in action. The task 
of parent and teacher alike is to train children in 
habits of a moral sort. The laziest man alive is 
likely to work at times, of necessity, and the most 

1 Psychological Principles of Education, pp. 268-269. 



28 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

industrious one ought to rest from his labor occa- 
sionally; but one's habitual practice determines 
whether he should be called lazy or industrious. In 
like manner, honest, frugal, temperate, kind, virtu- 
ous, just, polite, truthful, are adjectives appropriately 
applied to individuals whose behavior habitually 
exhibits these qualities and characteristics. As 
Rowe has stated : " Virtue is not apphed to sporadic 
or spasmodic plays of good will. It must have the 
stability characteristic of habit." 

Quotations from James et ah — Though the 
world has much more to say of bad habits — pro- 
fanity, drunkenness, etc., everybody recognizes 
that our specific virtues are built up as habits just 
as truly as our vices are. In other words, habits 
of the right sort we make our friends ; their op- 
posites, our enemies. Shakespeare recognized this 
when he wrote, " Happy is the man whose habits 
are his friends." But it remained for James to 
make clear to teachers the neural basis of habit, 
and to announce that : 

"The great thing, then, in all education is to make our 
nervous system our ally instead of our enemy." 

This is made possible, as every physiological psy- 
chology now teaches, because of the plasticity of 
brain cells, and because, as James further states, 

"Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its 
never so little scar" 

in these cells. All that one says and all that one 
does is recorded in the molecular structure of brain 
and nerves, making easier a repetition of a given 
act because of the tendency of a " * neural discharge' 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION 29 

to follow the 'pathway' already marked, and, in 
turn, to make the ' pathway ' still more distinct/' 
Quoting the same author once more : 

"Nothing we ever do is, in strict literalness, ever 
wiped out. Of course this has its good side as well as 
its bad one. As we become permanent drunkards by so 
many separate drinks, so we become saints in the moral, 
and authorities and experts in the practical and scientific 
spheres, by so many separate acts and hours of work." 

A well-known teacher and lecturer used to ex- 
press the same thought by stating that " the greatest 
thing one ever does is himself," meaning that the 
subjective influence of one's thoughts, and even 
one's acts, is of greater significance than the ob- 
jective eff'ects intended as resultants of his acts. 

Angell discusses " Mind, Neural Action, and 
Habit " in a chapter which he closes with a sub- 
topic, " Ethical Aspects of Habit," in which he says : 

"The moment one gets clearly in mind the physiological 
nature of habit and its basis in the nervous tissues, its 
ominous significance for morality becomes evident. To 
break up a bad habit means not only to secure a penitent, 
reformatory attitude of mind, ... it means a complete 
change in certain parts of the nervous system, and this is 
frequently a thing of utmost difficulty of achievement. 
No amount of good resolution can possibly wipe out at 
once the influences of nervous habits of long standing, 
and if these habits be pernicious, the slavery of the victim 
is sure to be pitiable and likely to be permanent. On the 
other hand, the momentous significance for the individual 
and society of deeply imbedded habits of a moral kind 
cannot be overestimated. The existence of such habits 
means stability, reliability, and a promise of the utmost 



30 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

possible confidence. It is all but impossible for one to 
break over the moral habits of. a lifetime. One may at 
times be mildly tempted by the possibilities such breaches 
hold out, but actual violation in overt action is essentially 
impossible. The man who has been vicious all his life is 
hardly free to become virtuous, and the virtuous man is 
in a kind of bondage to righteousness. What one of us 
could go out upon the street and murder the first person 
we met ? Such action is literally impossible for us, so 
long as we retain our sanity. 

"In view of these considerations, no one can over- 
estimate the ethical importance of habit. To make of 
the body, in which our habits are conserved, a friend and 
ally and not an enemy, is an ideal which should be strenu- 
ously and intelligently held out to every young person. 
One never can say at what precise moment it may be- 
come literally impossible to shake off a bad habit. But 
we know with perfect certainty that our nervous tissues 
are storing up every day the results of our actions, and 
the time is, therefore, sure to come when no amount of 
merely pious intention can redeem us from the penalty 
of our folly. Meantime, . . . this general advice may be 
given : begin the new regime at once, do not wait for a 
convenient season. If the result be not likely to be 
physically disastrous, stop wholly, do not taper off. Give 
yourself surroundings which will offer the least possible 
temptation. Do not try merely to suppress the bad habit. 
If possible, put something else which is good in place of 
it. See to it that you are always occupied in some 
proper way until you feel sure that the grip of the bad 
habit is loosened." ^ 

Laws of habit formation stated. — Teachers and 
parents looking for practical help in guiding chil- 
dren into the formation of proper habits or the 

1 Psychology, pp. 77-78. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION 31 

breaking of undesirable ones will find the following 
maxims serviceable. Suggested in part by Bain, 
they were definitely formulated by James, and have 
later been incorporated in more or less modified and 
amplified form in the treatment of habit by Thorn- 
dike, Bagley, Home, Rowe, Halleck, and numerous 
other writers. Indeed, they have been preached 
from thousands of pulpits, for ministers no less than 
teachers and parents, recognize that the effective- 
ness of their work is to be measured by the help 
they give in establishing good habits and breaking 
bad ones. 

"First, in the acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving 
off of an old one, we must take care to launch ourselves 
with as strong and decided an initiative as possible. 
Accumulate all the possible circumstances which shall 
reinforce the right motives ; put yourself assiduously in 
conditions that encourage the new way; make engage- 
ments incompatible with the old ; envelop your resolu- 
tion with every aid you know." 

Signing the pledge, for one who proposes to be 
temperate ; or joining a church, for one who intends 
to take a definite forward step in the religious life, 
is acting in harmony with this maxim. As Halleck 
reminds us : 

"Many a person has stood firm only because he ran 
away from dangerous ideas. The companions of Ulysses 
were wise to stop their ears with wax, so as not to hear the 
songs of the sirens. Ulysses heard, and his desire to go 
to them overmastered him. Had he not been forcibly 
restrained, he would have perished. Once out of hear- 
ing, he was a man again.'' ^ 

1 Psychology and Psychic Culture, p. 358, 



32 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Jesus, the Great Teacher, knew that men who 
can stand morally upright under certain circum- 
stances may fall under others ; so he taught his 
disciples to pray, " Lead us not into temptation," 

"Second, never suffer an exception to occur till the 
new habit is securely rooted in your life. . . . Without 
unbroken advance there is no such thing as accumulation 
of the ethical forces possible, and to make this possible, 
and to exercise us and habituate us in it, is the sovereign 
blessing of regular work." 

Rowe ^ has devoted a chapter of more than twenty 
pages to a consideration of methods of preventing 
exceptions. These include, among many others, 
guarding against probable temptations, warning 
against first tendencies to lapse, picturing painful 
consequences of lapses, resolving against lapses, 
determination not to be beaten. 

"Third, seize the very first possible opportunity to 
act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional 
prompting you may experience in the direction of the 
habits you aspire to gain. ... No matter how full a 
reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter 
how good one's sentiments may be, if one have not taken 
advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's 
character may remain entirely unaffected for the better. 
With mere good intentions, hell is proverbially paved. 

"Fourth, don't preach too much to your pupils or 
abound in good talk in the abstract. Lie in wait rather 
for the practical opportunities, be prompt to seize those 
as they pass, and thus at one operation get your pupils 
both to think, to feel, and to do. The strokes of behavior 
1 Habit Formation and the Science of Teaching, cliap. x. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION 33 

are what give the new set to the character, and work the 
good habits into its organic tissue. Preaching and talk- 
ing too soon become an ineffectual bore. 

" Fifth, keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little 
gratuitous exercise every day." 

The moral will as the highest expression of the 
moral life. — But after all is said that can be said in 
favor of habits of the right sort, it must be admitted 
that even good habits do not exhibit the highest 
reaches of morality. It remains to speak briefly 
of the place of will in conduct. It is this aspect 
of the self, involving judgment, deliberation, choice, 
and decision, and, in the moral realm, conscience, 
too, that is the crowning glory of the moral life. 

After making due allowance for the place of in- 
stincts, impulses, and habits in our action; after 
granting that the suggestions that come from our 
environment, physical and social, are powerful 
determinants of our conduct, the fact remains that 
a sense of duty may be so strong within us that we 
may will to act in accordance with its mandates. 
Every child has the opportunity open to adults 
to train his will. All of life is a school for its train- 
ing. It involves the conception of an ideal, a definite 
aim, a dominant purpose, often sustained attention, 
certainly a deep interest and a belief in the worth- 
while-ness of the object. It may mean sacrifice 
of temporary pleasures — sometimes of position, 
of money, of honors, of friends. But the deepest 
satisfactions of life come with its exercise, what- 
ever the cost. It is the highest expression of the 
moral life, and perhaps the greatest factor in the 
progressive development of such life. 



34 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

As one writer ^ has well said : 

"The student pushing steadily toward his goal in spite 
of poverty and grinding labor; the teacher who, though 
unappreciated and poorly paid, yet performs every duty 
with conscientious thoroughness; the man who stands 
firm in the face of temptation ; the person whom heredity 
or circumstance has handicapped, but who, nevertheless, 
courageously fights his battle; the countless men and 
women everywhere whose names are not known to fame, 
but who stand in the hard places, bearing the heat and 
the toil with brave, unflinching hearts, — these are the 
ones who are developing a moral fiber and strength of 
will which will stand in the day of stress." 

Questions and Suggestions 

1. The public frequently condemns the schools because 
they do not give definite moral instruction. Is such 
criticism heeded by the leading educators ? Are they 
less concerned with moral character than the public is .? 
Can you show that the means usually proposed by the 
public would rest upon an inadequate psychological 
basis, and therefore would fail to bring desired results ? 

2. "It is futile to assume that knowledge of right con- 
stitutes a guarantee of doing right." Discuss this state- 
ment. 

3. Explain the James-Lange theory of emotions. 
Illustrate. Show its bearing upon schoolroom discipline. 

4. Lowell writes : 

"Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, 
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." 

Show the psychological sense in which one does feed 

himself by such giving. Show the values for moral 

education of school children in having them take part in 

1 Betts, The Mind and Its Education^ p. 242. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MORAL EDUCATION 35 

the campaigns for Red Cross funds and other activities 
made necessary by the War. 

5. Why does the average child of ten or twelve years 
like manual training or cooking (if a girl) so much better 
than formal grammar? Which of the two subjects does 
more for his moral education at that time ? Why ? 

6. Show the part played by the instinct of imitation 
in character-building. From the standpoint of this in- 
stinct, what is the great problem of the school in educating 
children to be moral .? 

7. How can the group or gang impulse be utilized in 
training children in the moral life ? Read Jacob Riis, 
How the Other Half Lives; Forbush, The Boy Problem; 
Swift, " The Spirit of the Gang, an Educational Asset," 
in Youth and the Race. 

8. Discuss the advantages for moral training in the 
socialized school, with a socialized curriculum and social- 
ized recitations, as compared with the results obtained in 
the older type of school. What mental powers are stimu- 
lated by the first named .? By the latter .? Can moral 
training be given successfully apart from social situations .? 
Justify your answer. 

9. Analyze the phrase force of character. What ele- 
ments do you find in it ? Discuss the character that 
merely lacks specific vices. 

10. Show the psychological truth or bearing of each of 
the following quotations : 

a. "All are architects of Fate." 

b. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars. 

But in ourselves, that we are underHngs." 

c. "My strength is as the strength of ten, 

Because my heart is pure." 

d. "Which way I turn is hell. Myself am hell." 

e. "Lives of great men all remind us 

We can make our lives sublime." 
/. " If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." 



36 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 



References for Further Reading 

Angell, James R. : Psychology : especially chapter xxi, 
Relation of Volition to Interest, Effort, and Will ; and 
chapter xxii, Character and the Will. Henry Holt & Co. 

CoLViN and Bagley : Human Behavior. Macmillan Co. 

Dewey, John: Moral Principles in Education. Riverside 
Educational Monographs. Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Halleck, Reuben Post: Psychology and Psychic Culture: 
especially chapters xi-xiii, inclusive. American Book Co. 

James, William : Talks to Teachers and Students : especially 
chapter iv, Education and Behavior; chapter vii, What the 
Native Reactions Are; chapter viii, The Laws of Habit; 
and chapter xv, The Will. Henry Holt & Co. 

James, William : Psychology : especially chapters xxiy-xxvi, 
inclusive. Henry Holt & Co. 

JuDD, C. H. : Psychology : especially chapter vii. Experience 
and Expression; and chapter viii. Instinct and Habit. 
Scribner's. 

KiRKPATRiCK, Edwin A. : Fundamentals of Child Study. 
(Primarily a discussion of Instincts.) Macmillan Co. 

Rowe, Stuart H. : Habit Formation and the Science of Teach- 
ing. Longmans, Green & Co. 



CHAPTER IV 

MORAL TRAINING THROUGH THE EXAMPLE AND 
PERSONALITY OF THE TEACHER 

Conscious vs. unconscious tuition. — Teachers are 
regularly employed to teach some particular sub- 
ject or group of subjects, but their greatest value 
to the school is seldom determined by what they 
teach. However great their scholarship, this is not 
likely to be the quality that makes the most lasting 
impression upon their pupils. Children remember 
teachers for what they are and not for what they 
teach. Any one who appears before boys and girls 
day after day in the classroom will teach more by 
example than by precept. He will irradiate a farther 
reaching unconscious influence than any conscious 
instruction can have. 

In a masterly address that has become an educa- 
tional classic in its printed form. Bishop Huntington, 
years ago, taught the pedagogical world the impor- 
tance of a teacher's unconscious tuition in molding 
the character of children. " Today's simple deahng 
with a raw or refractory pupil," he says, " takes its 
insensible coloring from the moral climate you have 
all along been breathing. . . . Celestial opportuni- 
ties avail us nothing unless we have ourselves been 
educated up to their level. If an angel come to 

37 



38 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

converse with us on the mountain top, he must find 
our tent already pitched in that upper air. . . . 
There is a touching plea in the loyal ardor with 
which the young are ready to look to their guides. 
. . . In children there is a natural instinct and passion 
for impersonating all ideal excellence in some superior 
being, and for Hving in intense devotion to a heroic 
presence. It is the privilege of every teacher to 
occupy that place, to ascend that lawful throne of 
homage and of love, if he will. If his pupils love 
him, he stands for their ideal of a heroic nature. 
Their romantic fancy invests him with unreal graces. 
Long after his lessons are forgotten, he remains, in 
memory, a teaching power. It is his own forfeit if, 
by a sluggish, spiritless brain, mean manners, or a 
small and selfish heart, he alienates that confidence 
and disappoints that generous hope." 

The best thing a school or college does. — An- 
other writer,^ briefly discussing the function of the 
teacher, says : " The greatest thing a teacher ever 
brings to a child is not subject-matter, but the uphft 
which comes from heart contact with a great per- 
sonality. This should be the first prerequisite in 
determining the acceptability of a teacher." The 
same writer refers to a study once made by President 
Charles F. Thwing, of the responses of fifty repre- 
sentative men to questions involving " the best thing 
college does for a man." The general tenor of most 
of the repHes is expressed in the statement that " the 
best thing which the American college has done for 
its graduates is in giving a training which is itself 
largely derived from personal relationship." This 

1 Search, An Ideal School, 



EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 39 

conception of the matter has its most apt illustra- 
tion in the saying that Garfield on one end of a log 
and Mark Hopkins on the other constitute a college. 
For after all, it is not buildings, laboratories, Hbraries, 
or courses of study, it is the great teachers, that 
make great schools. 

The ideal teacher. — George Herbert Palmer has 
written a little monograph entitled, " The Ideal 
Teacher." In it he briefly discusses the four char- 
acteristics of a great teacher. They are, first, an 
aptitude for vicariousness ; second, an already accu- 
mulated wealth ; third, an abihty to invigorate life 
through knowledge ; and fourth, a readiness to be 
forgotten. " Having these," says the writer, " any 
teacher is secure. Lacking them, lacking even one, 
he is liable to serious failure." Now, as it seems to 
me, the second and third characteristics are largely 
matters of scholarship and method, possessions which 
the normal school and college can communicate to 
the teacher who is anxious to secure them. The 
first and last are more nearly matters of personality 
and character, and therefore less likely to be the 
possessions of the rank and file of teachers. But it 
is one of the delights of a superintendent occasionally 
to find a teacher whose whole nature is kindled with 
enthusiasm for her work, with sympathy and love 
for her children, with a disposition that radiates sun- 
shine, with an ability to put herself in the child's 
place and see his point of view, and with a missionary 
spirit that enables her to think of teaching as a mis- 
sion and not a job. Such a teacher, like the Great 
Teacher, undertakes her task that children " may 
have life " and " have it more abundantly." She 



40 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

is willing to lose her life in service that she may find 
it again in the lives of her pupils. Without a love 
for children, and without the spirit of service and 
of self-sacrifice, she may secure a teacher's certifi- 
cate, sign a contract, and stay on a pay roll, but 
she can not be a really great and influential teacher. 
Her community may not be a diagnostician that can 
detect her weakness ; her pupils may not be dis- 
criminating enough to know what the trouble is : but 
her influence for good can not be far-reaching unless 
she loves her work and gladly does much more than 
can be prescribed in detail for her. Shakespeare's 
characterization of a schoolboy, " creeping like snail, 
unwillingly to school," is not applicable to the chil- 
dren of today who are fortunate in having a teacher 
equipped in mind and heart for teaching. 

Elbert Hubbard's famous epigram prophesying a 
time when children " will be neither sent nor sen- 
tenced to school," was inspired by a knowledge of 
teachers who are too superficial, too formal, too lazy, 
or too dead to attract, arouse, and inspire their 
classes. But there are thousands of teachers to 
whom children go gladly day by day, and from whom 
they get such an uplift as comes to them from no 
other source in life. These teachers may or may 
not be well trained through the completion of courses 
in normal school or college. Valuable as scholarship 
and training are as a supplement to a teacher's 
equipment, the college president was probably right 
when he said, " I have never seen a success that 
could be accounted for by scholarship and training 
alone. I have never seen a failure that I could not 
account for on other grounds." 



EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 41 

Hyde on personality. — The word which is usually 
made to cover the fundamental and indispensable 
qualities of a teacher is personality. It is not easy 
to define, and it is not easy to analyze, but it is rela- 
tively easy to recognize. Wise school boards and 
superintendents look for it in their teachers above 
all else, and they know full well that even advanced 
degrees are no evidence of its presence. Comment- 
ing upon it, President Hyde says : 

"Now, personality is very largely a matter of heredity. 
Some people are born large-natured ; other people are 
born small-souled. The former are born to succeed ; the 
latter are born to fail in any work in which personaHty 
counts for so much as it does in teaching. People with 
these mean natures and small souls never ought to try 
to teach. They ought to get into some strictly me- 
chanical work where skilled hands count for everything 
and warm hearts count for nothing. Still personality, 
though largely dependent on heredity, is in great measure 
capable of cultivation." 

Assuming, then, that a teacher of average hered- 
itary gifts may make her own personality, the 
writer, through thirty pages of an invaluable pres- 
entation, unfolds the five answers to the problem 
which he says the world has found. They are : the 
Epicurean, the Stoic, the Platonic, the Aristotelian, 
and the Christian. They will abundantly repay any 
teacher for her pains in reading them again and 
again, but I quote here the concluding page : 

"I will guarantee personal success to any well-trained 
teacher who will faithfully incorporate these five prin- 
ciples into his personal life. The teacher who is healthy 



42 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

and happy with Epicurus nights and mornings, hoHdays 
and vacations, at meal-time and between meals ; who 
faithfully fortifies his soul with the Stoic defenses against 
needless regrets and superfluous forebodings; who now 
and then ascends with Plato the heights from which he 
sees the letters of his life writ large, and petty annoyances 
reduced to their true dimensions; who applies the Aris- 
totelian sense of proportion to the distribution of his 
energy, so that the full force of it is held in reserve for 
the things that are really worth while, and, finally, sees 
in the lives of his scholars the supreme object for which 
all these other accumulations and savings have been 
made, and devotes himself joyfully and unreservedly to 
the common work he tries to do with them, for them, 
and through them for their lasting good, — this teacher 
can no more help being a personal success as a teacher 
than the sunlight and rain can help making the earth 
the fruitful and beautiful place that it is." ^ 

A lesson from Bonauenture. — In Cable's Bona- 
venture is presented one of the most inspiring ex- 
amples of a teacher born to succeed that can be 
found in life or fiction. His school was in Grande 
Pointe, Louisiana, where a medley of Creoles and 
Acadians lived a primitive life in great ignorance, 
superstition, and distrust of both English and educa- 
tion. Bonaventure Deschamps was the teacher, and 
in spite of obstacles that would have overpowered 
most souls, his success in teaching the children of the 
neighborhood was little less than miraculous. At 
last, from fear that a successful public school and the 
teaching of English would soon mean railroads, im- 
migration, and other innovations to disturb the 
complacency of the people, a conspiracy was formed 

1 The Teacher s Philosophy. Riverside Educational Monograph. 



EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 43 

to close the school against the will of the inspired 
teacher and his tearful pupils. A clever stranger in 
the neighborhood was let into the secret, and his 
services enlisted to show up the teacher as a fraud. 
The fateful day came and the conspirators went to 
the school to overthrow it. The teacher was forced 
to agree to close the school and leave it if just one of 
his pupils should miss one word in the public test 
made that day. 

Of course somebody missed at last, and Bonaven- 
ture, in heart-broken voice, cried, " Everything 
lost ! Farewell, chil'run ! " " He opened his arms 
toward them and with one dash all the lesser ones 
filled them. They wept. Tears welled from Bona- 
venture's eyes ; and the mothers of Grande Pointe 
dropped again into their seats and silently added 
theirs." 

Then the unexpected happened. The stranger, 
touched by the pathos of the teacher's love for his 
school, and the children's reciprocal love for him, 
arose and said : 

" I came out here to show up that man as a fraud. 
But what do I find .? A poor, unpaid, half-starved 
man that loves his thankless work better than his 
life, teaching what not one schoolmaster in a thou- 
sand can teach ; teaching his whole school four 
better things than were ever printed in any school- 
book, — how to study, how to think, how to value 
knowledge, and to love one another and mankind. 
What you'd ought to have done was to agree that 
such a school should keep open, and such a teacher 
should stay, if just one, one lone child should answer 
one single book-question right ! " 



44 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Domsie of Drumtochty. — Ian Maclaren has given 
the world another teacher worth knowing in Domsie 
of Drumtochty.^ In most respects very unhke 
Bonaventure, hke him " he gave all his love to the 
children " and " nearly all his money, too, helping 
lads to college. He could detect a scholar in the 
egg, and prophesied Latinity from a boy that seemed 
fit only to be a cowherd. It was believed that he 
never made a mistake in judgment, and it was not 
his blame if the embryo scholar did not come to 
birth." There are scores of teachers who are great 
scholars, for every one to be found with a genuine 
passion for making scholars out of his pupils. 
Domsie clearly belonged to the latter class. For 
Latin he hunted " as for line gold, and when he 
found the smack of it in a lad he rejoiced openly. 
He counted it a day in his life when he knew cer- 
tainly that he had hit on another scholar,'' for he 
thought with " auld John Knox that ilka scholar is 
something added to the riches of the commonwealth." 
But while " he had a leaning to classics and the pro- 
fessions, Domsie was catholic in his recognition of 
* pairts,' " so that he displayed unfeigned pleasure 
in the achievement of the foreman's son who made a 
collection of the insects of Drumtochty. ** Generally 
speaking, if any clever lad did not care for Latin he 
had the alternative of beetles." 

Another element in Domsie's character is revealed 
in the efforts he made to find money with which to 
give Geordie Hoo a college education. Drumsheigh, 
the boy's neighbor, was importuned for help, but 
was reluctant to give it, whereupon Domsie said to 

^ Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush. 



EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 45 

him : " Fve naethin' in this world but a handfu' o' 
books and a ten-pound note for my funeral, and yet, 
if it was-na I have all my brither's bairns tae keep, 
I wud pay every penny myseF ! But I'll no see 
Geordie sent to the plough, tho' I gang frae door to 
door. Na, na, the grass 'ill no grow on the road 
atween the college and the schule-house o' Drum- 
tochty till they lay me in the auld kirkyard ! " 

Doctor Strong's appeal to the honor of boys. — 
One of the most lovable characters Dickens has 
created is the good old teacher. Doctor Strong, in 
David Copperfield. He is represented as having " a 
simple faith that might have touched the stone 
hearts of the very urns upon the wall. . . . He 
appealed in everything to the honor and good faith 
of the boys, and relied on their possession of those 
qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy." 
One of his former pupils said of him in later life: 
" When I was very young, quite a little child, my 
first associations with knowledge of any kind were 
inseparable from a patient friend and teacher. . . . 
I can remember nothing that I know without remem- 
bering him. He stored my mind with its first treas-. 
ures, and stamped his character upon them all. They 
never could have been, I think, as good as they have 
been to me, if I had taken them from any other hands." 

Helen Keller and Miss Sullivan. — But we need 
not confine ourselves to teachers in fiction to see 
fine exhibitions of a teacher's personality stamping 
itself upon the character and life of a pupil. What 
finer tribute to a teacher could be paid than the 
following words from Helen Keller concerning her 
teacher and companion. Miss Sullivan ? 



46 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

*'At the beginning I was only a little mass of possi- 
bilities. It was my teacher who unfolded and developed 
them. When she came, everything about me breathed 
of love and joy and was full of meaning. She has never 
since let pass an opportunity to point out the beauty 
that is in everything, nor has she ceased trying in 
thought and action and example to make my life sweet 
and useful. 

"It was my teacher's genius, her quick sympathy, her 
loving tact which made the first years of my education 
so beautiful. It was because she seized the right moment 
to impart knowledge that made it so pleasant and ac- 
ceptable to me. She realized that a child's mind is like 
a shallow brook which ripples and dances merrily over 
the stony course of its education and reflects here a 
flower, there a bush, yonder a fleecy cloud ; and she 
attempted to guide my mind on its way, knowing that 
like a brook it should be fed by mountain streams and 
hidden springs, until it broadened out into a deep river, 
capable of reflecting in its placid surface, billowy hills, 
the luminous shadows of trees and the blue heavens, as 
well as the sweet face of a little flower. 

"Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but 
not every teacher can make him learn. He will not 
work joyously unless he feels that liberty is his, whether 
he is busy or at rest ; he must feel the flush of victory 
and the heart-sinking of disappointment before he takes 
with a will the tasks distasteful to him and resolves to 
dance his way bravely through a dull routine of text- 
books. 

"My teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of 
myself apart from her. How much of my delight in all 
beautiful things is innate, and how much is due to her 
influence, I can never tell. I feel that her being is in- 
separable from my own, and that the footsteps of my 
life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to her — 



EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 47 

there is not a talent, or an aspiration, or a joy in me that 
has not been awakened by her loving touch." ^ 

Horace Mann. — Horace Mann was doubtless the 
most influential educator America has yet produced. 
He rendered conspicuous service as an organizer and 
administrator, as secretary of the Massachusetts 
Board of Education, as a member of Congress, and 
as president of Antioch College. Perhaps his fame 
rests more largely upon any one of these phases of 
his work than upon his teaching, yet it is significant 
that his biographer pays his greatest tribute to his 
morahty, which must have been in evidence what- 
ever his work. Hinsdale, after caUing attention to 
the first fact he notes relative to Mann — that he 
was not a theorist and not a philosopher, says: 
*' The second fact is that Mann's moral nature dorni- 
nated his intellect so completely as to intensify its 
defects. His devotion to truth and right, as he saw 
them, his sense of duty, his unselfishness, his benev- 
olence, were very marked. His moral earnestness 
was something tremendous, and constituted the 
first of the two great motive powers of his Hfe. 
Perhaps no man of his State and time was more 
strongly moved by the modern passion for social 
improvement." ^ 

Arnold of Rugby. — The teacher who more than 
almost any other has left the most illuminating ex- 
ample for the rest of us to follow if we would mold 
character and influence the lives of our pupils for 
good, is Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby, often called 
" England's greatest schoolmaster." Though he 

1 The Story of My Life, pp. 38-40. ^ Horace Mann, p. 268. 



48 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

was born in 1795 and died at the early age of 47, 
his fourteen years of teaching in Rugby were of 
such character as to give him an international repu- 
tation among scholars and educators. He knew 
how to combine firmness and tenderness at all times. 
He had the courage to stand by his convictions even 
when it provoked sharp criticism and censure. He 
made his primary appeals to the honor of his boys, 
and was himself the soul of honor at all times. " He 
trusted the boys and never seemed to watch them. 
Their word was not doubted. * If you say so, that 
is quite enough ; of course I believe your word,' was 
his frequent statement." ^ " There grew up in con- 
sequence," says Stanley, " a general feehng that it 
was a shame to tell Arnold a he — he always beHeves 
one. 

One pupil writes of him : " I am sure that I do 
not exaggerate my feelings when I say that I felt a 
love and reverence for him as one of quite awful 
greatness and goodness, for whom, I well remember, 
that I used to think I would gladly lay down my 
life. ... I used to believe that I, too, had a work 
to do for him in the school, and did, for his sake, 
labor to raise the tone of the set I lived in." 

Another of the old Rugby boys, after praising 
their character, a character which the school had 
kept to the day of his writing, inquired : " And what 
gave Rugby boys this character \ I say, fearlessly, 
Arnold's teaching and example — his unwearied 
zeal in creating * moral thoughtfulness ' in every boy 
with whom he came into personal contact. He cer- 

* Quoted from Thomas Arnold, in Bolton's Famous Leaders Among 
Men. 



EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 49 

tainly did teach us — thank God for it ! — that we 
could not cut our life into slices and say, ' In this 
slice your actions are indifferent, and you needn't 
trouble your heads about them one way or another; 
but in this slice mind what you are about, for they 
are important.' " ^ 

The teacher today who looks upon education as a 
product rather than a process, and who imagines 
that a normal school or college diploma, or a first 
grade teacher's certificate, makes further study and 
growth unnecessary, may find the following words 
from Arnold worthy of consideration : " He is the 
best teacher of others who is best taught himself; 
that which we know and love, we cannot but com- 
municate. ... I hold that a man is only fit to 
teach so long as he is himself learning daily. If the 
mind once becomes stagnant, it can give no fresh 
draught to another mind ; it is drinking out of 
a pond instead of from a spring. ... I think it 
essential that I should not give up my own read- 
ing, as I always find an addition of knowledge 
to turn to account for the school in some way 
or other." 

Personality defined. — McTurnan says, " The 
personal equation in teaching is manifest not in the 
word, but in the emphasis ; not in the outline of the 
face, but in its illumination ; not in the clothes worn, 
but in the moral atmosphere one carries with him; 
not in imitation, but in inspiration ; not in physical 
or intellectual strength alone, but in power." ^ 

1 Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown s School Days. Preface to the Sixth 
Edition. 

2 The Personal Equation. 



50 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

The best teachers as seen by high-school students. 
— Some time ago the writer received from five hun- 
dred fifty high-school students answers to a question 
calHng for a Hst of the quahties in teachers which 
had made the strongest appeal to them. No quah- 
ties were suggested, so it was necessary for those 
answering to analyze the character of teachers in their 
own way. The replies submitted proved most in- 
teresting and valuable when studied and tabulated. 
The following comment by the author was based 
upon them, and appeared in the Fiftieth Annual 
Report of the Board of Education of Decatur, and later 
as a part of a larger study published in the Jouryial 
of Educational Administration and Supervision, Janu- 
ary, 1916. 

*' Almost every conceivable characteristic has made 
its appeal to some student. Even obvious weaknesses, 
as measured by adult standards, have in a few cases been 
the conspicuously pleasing qualities, though this is rare. 
For example, one student was most favorably impressed 
with the fact that one of his teachers smokes. Another 
candidly admits that 'one does dislike studying under a 
paragon of all virtues.' But these are exceptions. Nearly 
all students are discriminating enough to recognize good 
qualities as such, but their sense of relative values is 
very different from that of many teachers. Scholarship 
does not awe, and pedagogical practices are not unduly 
impressive. Only 18 students name the teacher's knowl- 
edge of his subject as the impressive quality. Two others 
stress the fact that their teachers were 'very learned.' 

"On the other hand 130 specify 'willingness to help 
me,' as the striking quality; 'patience' was named 85 
times; 'kindness,' 80 times; 'clearness,' 35; 'sense of 
humor,' 32; 'understanding of students,' 24; 'firmness,' 



EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 51 

21; 'impartiality,' 24; 'cheerfulness,' 19; 'pleasantness,' 
19; 'ability to make work interesting,' 21; 'sincerity,' 
14; 'sympathy,' 16. In other words, students like 
teachers for exactly the same reason that men and women 
are liked by groups of their fellows out in the world in 
other relations. 

"No amount of learning and no amount of 'professional 
training,' though each is a sine qua non, can atone for a 
lack of the human touch, and the virtues which endear 
people to their associates in ordinary walks of Hfe. The 
most scholarly teachers, employing the most skillful 
methods, measured by coldly intellectual standards, must 
largely fail to get desired results if they fail to bring or 
beget the right emotional atmosphere in the schoolroom. 
Emotional warmth is just as essential to the growth of 
ideas as physical warmth is to growth of plants. Frost 
is as much to be avoided in the schoolroom as in the 
garden. 

"Dignity, culture, correctness of speech, modesty, po- 
liteness, beauty, thoroughness, exactness, quietness — 
these are other qualities named a few times, but where 
possessed, even in large degree, they have not impressed 
the rank and file of students as they have adults generally. 

"Finally, it may be said that teachers should strive 
no less for scholarship and skill in the technique of class- 
room instruction, even if students do tend to minimize 
the importance of these quahfications ; but the large 
place pupils give in their esteem to the more personal 
and social qualities of teachers is evidence that we rniss 
our opportunity to be of largest service unless we adjust 
ourselves to this fact, and become attractive rather than 
repellent in our relations with our students, to^the very 
largest degree that it is possible for us to attain." 

Ruskin quoted. — John Ruskin v^as not primarily 
a teacher, but in the paragraph here taken from one 



52 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

of his essays, he exhibits an understanding of one 
aspect of teaching and training which this whole 
chapter has attempted to exalt : 

"Education does not mean teaching people to know 
what they do not know. It means teaching them to 
behave as they do not behave. It is not teaching the 
youth the shapes of letters and the tricks of numbers 
and then leaving them to turn their arithmetic to roguery 
and their literature to lust. It is, on the contrary, train- 
ing them into the perfect exercise and kingly continence 
of their bodies and souls. It is a painful, continual, and 
difficult work, to be done by kindness, by watching, by 
warning, by precept, and by praise,^ but above all, by 
example.'* 

Right living is an art, the finest of the arts. In 
becoming proficient in it, the learner can make good 
use of much information, of many directions and 
admonitions, but as in the case of acquiring other 
arts, there are no directions so easily understood and 
followed as an object lesson, a personal demonstra- 
tion, an illustrative example. Hence the impor- 
tance of a teacher's personal influence. She may 
not know just how or when to teach the most impres- 
sive moral lessons, but if she is living the well-rounded 
moral Hfe, her pupils cannot escape her helpful 
influence. 

Was it Emerson who said, in substance at least ? 
— ** How can I hear what you say, when what you 
are keeps thundering in my ears ? " At all events 
it is what teachers are that does ring loudest and 
longest in the ears of children. It is what they are 
that fashions the lives, shapes the character, and 
determines, in large measure, the ideals of the chil- 



EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 53 

dren intrusted to them in school or home. It is, 
therefore, a great day for a child or a class \yhen it 
is permitted to come into close personal relationship 
with a teacher whose character is wholesome, clean, 
and upright ; whose daily hving is upon such a plane 
that it reenforces and makes attractive her every 
precept concerning right conduct. 

Important qualities restated. — What are some 
of the marks of such a teacher .? The first one rnust 
surely be love and good will. Without such a spirit, 
a teacher is an anomaly. She has no place in the 
schoolroom. With it, what may not be accom- 
phshed ? Well may we ask that our children be 
dehvered from the blight of long contact with a 
teacher who " carries a grouch," who hates or merely 
tolerates children, who finds no pleasure in them and 
no sympathy for them. The dyspeptic, the pessi- 
mist, the cynic, the sarcastic, the scold — these types 
can hardly offer enough in scholarship, in profes- 
sional training, in methodology, to justify their 
presence in the classroom that has forty sensitive, 
impressionable children. 

A second characteristic is sincerity. The con- 
tagion of character is too certain to permit the 
presence of an insincere, hypocritical, or dishonest 
teacher. Children are keen and quick to detect 
shams, but they are none the less cheated out of their 
heritage when exposed to them. Nothing but good 
can come to a class from a teacher's wilhngness to 
confess a fault, admit an error, or acknowledge in- 
ability to answer a question, provided, of course, 
such confessions do not come too frequently. It is 
always painful to a supervisor to witness the shallow 



54 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

subterfuge of a teacher who is not big enough and 
sincere enough to say she does not know when she 
doesn't know. It is a vain and fatuous sort of 
camouflage to try to hide ignorance behind an in- 
junction to the class to " look that up and report 
tomorrow." This does not at all mean that there 
are not frequent occasions for developing a healthful 
curiosity in a class that may well take a day or more 
in finding its satisfaction concerning a topic worthy 
of further study and research. But honesty is the 
best poHcy for the teacher in matters intellectual as 
truly as for every man in financial and business 
dealings with his associates. 

There are teachers, many of them, who teach their 
best moral lessons by their own Hves without a word 
concerning the virtues they embody. Politeness, 
kindhness, loyalty, cheerfulness, optimism, sym- 
pathy, justice, patriotism, respect for age, for those 
in authority, reverence for God — these and other 
virtues in their Hves radiate their influence at all 
times. They create an atmosphere that is genial 
and favorable for growth. The power of suggestion 
and the strength of the imitative instinct in children 
make it possible for much that is best in the character 
of the teacher to be " caught rather than taught.'' 
Such a teacher's value to the school can never be 
measured by the importance and the popularity of 
the subject she is hired to teach. Indeed, it is well 
for every teacher to bear in mind that, whether good 
or bad, she is in a very large sense the course of 
study herself, and the only one that all her pupils 
will really take and understand. Without sacrilege 
it can be said of her that if she is wholly worthy of 



EXAMPLE AND PERSONALITY OF TEACHER 55 

her place as teacher and spiritual guide, she must 
be " the way, the truth, and the hfe " to the children 
she teaches day by day. 



Questions and Suggestions 

1. Comment upon the following: "Character must be 
caught, not taught." 

2. Comment upon the quotations from Huntington, 
Palmer, Hyde. 

3. Read Cable's Bonaventure. What do you think of 
the teaching ideal there held up ? 

4. Does Domsie of Drumtochty deserve a place in 
present-day schools as an ideal .? 

5. Read Dickens as an Educator, by Hughes, and es- 
timate the pedagogical values of such teachings as are 
therein illustrated. Dr. Strong is but one of many 
characters Dickens has created for the illumination of 
the theme of this chapter. 

6. Why does a knowledge of Miss Sullivan's attitude 
towards Helen Keller make you more patient and sym- 
pathetic with children who are handicapped by nature 
or environment '^. 

7. Discuss the influence of Arnold upon English schools. 

8. With a list of the likable qualities in teachers as 
seen by high-school students as a measuring stick, make 
a self-examination and decide wherein you may seem 
strong, and wherein weak, as a teacher. 



References for Further Reading 

Bell, Sanford: A Study of the Teacher's Influence. Peda- 
gogical Seminary, Vol. VIL 

Benson, Arthur C. : The Personality of the Teacher. Educa- 
tional Review, Vol. XXXVII, pp. 217-230. 



56 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Cable, Geo. W. : Bonaventure. Scribner's. 

Engleman, J. O. : Likable Qualities in Teachers. Educational 

Administration and Supervisio7iy January, 1916, and Journal 

of Educationy April 6, 191 6. 
Hughes, James L. : Dickens as an Educator. D. Appleton & 

Co. 
Hughes, Thomas : Tom Brown's School Days. 
Hyde, William DeWitt : The Teacher's Philosophy. Hough- 
ton Mifflin Co. 
Keller, Helen : The Story of My Life. Doubleday, Page & Co. 
Maclaren, Ian : Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush. Dodd, Mead 

&Co. 
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Selections from the Thoughts of, 

in Monroe's Source Book of the History of Education, pp. 

377-385. Macmillan Co. 
McTuRNAN, Lawrence : The Personal Equation. Atkinson, 

Mentzer & Grover Co. 
West, Andrew Fleming: The Personal Touch in Teaching. 

Educational Review^ Vol. XXXVI, pp. 109-120. 
Wray, Angelina W. : Glimpses of Child Nature, chapter xii. 

Public School Publishing Co. 



CHAPTER V 

MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH SCHOOL 
DISCIPLINE 

Discipline as a means to an end. — There is a 
whole catalogue of virtues and moral elements 
which the school must seek to establish and 
strengthen in its pupils. Perhaps the most of them, 
and the best of them, are secured through instruc- 
tion, recitation, study of lessons, personal example 
of the teacher, opening exercises, playground ac- 
tivities, and so on. Many of these are treated at 
greater length in other chapters. But the point 
to observe here is that discipline as a means to an 
end, discipline as an auxiliary of teaching, offers its 
opportunity to strengthen or weaken certain moral 
habits to such a degree that what a teacher does or 
fails to do with a pupil under certain circumstances 
may more profoundly affect his moral life than 
much of her instruction and didactic teaching can 
affect it. 

An illustration. — For example, suppose the case 
of a petted, spoiled only child from some home. He 
may be selfish and self-centered in the extreme. 
He enters school and brings with him all his egoistic 
attitudes and habits. 

He resents authority. He expects everybody to 

57 



58 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

bend to his will. He is a social nonconformist. If 
the teacher is alert and wise, her discipline of such 
a child will probably give him a lesson he needs 
more than he needs any formal instruction in the 
ordinary branches of the curriculum. Fortunately 
for the child, if the teacher should overlook her 
opportunity to deal with him as he needs, the esprit 
de corps of the children and the democracy of the 
playground are such as to contribute largely to 
this end. Indeed, certain moral qualities are cul- 
tivated, and their opposite vices eradicated, more 
successfully on the playground than in the class- 
room, as we have shown in chapter xiv. But any 
teacher will be more efficient if she look upon her 
problems of discipline, not merely as so many ob- 
stacles interfering with the frictionless running of 
the school machine, but as exhibitions of specific 
pathological moral conditions for which either 
prophylactic or curative treatment must be found 
suited to the individual need. She may teach a 
splendid lesson in literature whose moral is obvious, 
but many members of the class are in no immediate 
need of such a lesson. She expects the lesson to be 
appropriated by the several children according to 
their respective needs, some needing little or none 
of it. But the teacher who is shrewd and patient 
enough to deal with every breach of discipline and 
every immoral act exhibited by her pupils is giving 
a type of training in morality more direct and 
pointed in its moral bearing than her classroom 
instruction can possibly be. As William Hawley 
Smith might say it, " She is putting the grease 
where the squeak is." 



THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 59 

Popular estimate of the good disciplinarian. — - 
It has long been a popular notion that a teacher's 
value is determined as much by her ability to disci- 
pline as to instruct her pupils. But discipHne is 
popularly regarded as keeping order, or eliminating 
outward disorder and compelling obedience to the 
rules and regulations of the school and of the teacher 
in particular. While this is not a very high con- 
ception of the term discipline, it may rightly be 
regarded as the first step towards the goal which 
every teacher must keep in mind. No instruction 
can count for much, and no training can be made 
very effective, in a schoolroom where lawlessness 
and chaos reign. Confusion, disorder, and dis- 
obedience are not conducive to a good school. 
They interfere with the successful accomplishment 
of every lesson, whatever its aim ; but more than 
that, they are factors which constitute the very 
antithesis of the moral ideas, ideals, and habits 
which the school should constantly strive to build 
up in its pupils. " Obedience is better than sacri- 
fice," and it is better than a good many other 
things which may seem attractive to the thought- 
less child. 

What constitutes good discipline. — But obedience 
can be compelled by certain types of teachers with- 
out resulting in growth in moral lines. The teacher's 
problem is to make obedience to law and order 
attractive; to train pupils to want, or will, to do 
right; to lead them to choose the right when the 
opportunity is theirs to choose an opposite course. 
Any other type of obedience can hardly be con- 
sidered moral in its essence, though it may be a 



Go MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

necessary condition for the realization of that aim 
through other teaching. 

The teacher whose pupils do not gradually learn 
lessons of self-control, of respect for the rights of 
others, of willing and cheerful obedience to au- 
thority ; whose pupils do not more and more tend 
to inhibit impulses prompting anarchy and mischief 
when the teacher's eye is turned away from them — 
is not developing the moral strength in them to which 
they are entitled. Too often she does not develop 
it because she fails to recognize its importance and 
fails to understand the bearing which the child's 
daily conduct, and her reaction to it, may ultimately 
have. 

The best guarantee of good discipline. — The 
young teacher may already be asking herself, 
" What is the secret of good discipline ? And how 
may it be attained .^ " The answer is, " There is 
no secret; and no rules can be laid down which will 
work equally well for all teachers." But the best 
guarantee of good disciphne is an enthusiastic, well- 
prepared teacher, interested in the subjects she is 
to teach ; interested, too, in boys and girls ; skill- 
ful in the conduct of her recitations, and no less 
skillful in assigning worth-while tasks. It is the 
idle child who causes trouble ; and it is the child 
whose tasks seem to have no particular importance 
other than to keep him busy that first becomes 
idle, and then busy with trouble-making. As you 
look back over your own experience as students, 
you can probably recall certain teachers whose 
teaching was such that you seldom or never thought 
of doing anything they would not approve. On 



THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 6l 

the other hand, you may recall one whose work was 
such as to stir your worst impulses daily because so 
little of life, of interest to you, of real worth to any 
one was going on. You may have wanted to "start 
something " just because nothing seemed to be 
going on. 

But every teacher knows that there are problems 
of discipline which even the best teacher must face 
from time to time. Twenty-five normal children 
associated daily in schoolroom and playground 
relationships for a period of six or eight or nine 
months are sure to exhibit within the school year 
most of the sins of omission and commission that 
are known and practiced by any children. It would 
be strange if there were no need of dealing with an 
occasional case of lying, cheating, lighting, cruelty, 
vulgarity, profanity, willful disobedience, smoking, 
laziness, uncleanliness, truancy, and shirking. Vary- 
ing degrees of immorality characterize the acts here 
named. Each one offers the teacher an opportunity 
to deal with it in such a way that the child may 
acquire some moral strength at the point at which 
he has shown himself weak. Or it may be ignored, 
or dealt with in such an inadequate or inappropriate 
way as to contribute nothing to the moral fiber of 
the child, and in some cases may even leave him 
morally weaker than before. 

Teacher must not shirk unpleasant duties. — 
The first principle to observe here is this : That the 
teacher must not fail to deal with every such case 
that comes to her attention, however unpleasant 
and disagreeable the task. To ignore it may be far 
easier for the teacher, but the character of the child 



62 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

is at stake, so something must be done. Habits 
of the above kinds must be prevented or broken up. 
To ignore the act is to help to confirm and to fix 
the immoral habit and to mar character. As 
teachers, we need to feel at least as much distress 
of mind and personal reproach when our children 
are guilty of lapses from the standard of morality 
which ought to characterize their degree of maturity, 
as when they fail to " pass " in their subjects of 
study. We certainly ought to study as diligently 
to find a way to help the child grow strong in some 
moral quality in which we know him to be weak, 
as to help another child attain a satisfactory scholas- 
tic standing when he proves himself below grade in 
it. Usually we do not feel the same responsibility 
in two such cases. Indeed we too often react to 
them in very different ways. In the latter case 
we are likely to be sympathetic with the weakness 
and anxious to help overcome it ; while in the former 
we too often become unsympathetic, sometimes 
unnecessarily severe, and not infrequently we erect 
a barrier between ourselves and the child whose 
very delinquency constitutes our problem and sets 
for us our most important task. It is not easy to 
love a bad boy, or girl either, but there is none who 
needs our love and help more ; and if we regard his 
badness as a weakness of character needing treat- 
ment, and not as a personal affront, or a personal 
attack upon our dignity, prerogatives, and rules, 
it will be easier to deal with him as he deserves. 

Motives must be considered. — A second prin- 
ciple to observe is : Take time to learn the mo- 
tive back of the act. The successful teacher from 



THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 63 

the standpoint of character-building is not in haste 
in deahng with infractions of rules, breaches of 
discipline, and apparently immoral acts. She can 
afford to wait until she knows the facts in the ease. 
She cannot afford to humiliate or punish the in- 
nocent. Nothing so embitters a child's spirit as 
the feeling that he has been misjudged and mis- 
treated. A boy who gets from his teacher what 
he knows in his own heart he deserves, seldom loses 
respect for the teacher who gives it, however severe 
it may be at the time; but it takes weeks, and 
sometimes years, for a child to recover from the 
personal hurt he feels if a teacher speaks a sharp 
word or inflicts in haste and anger an unmerited 
punishment. 

Importance of self-control in the teacher. — It 
is as well for the teacher as for the child to know 
that " He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than 
he that taketh a city." It is even more obhgatory 
for the teacher than for the child to govern his 
conduct in the hght of this proverb. Papers are 
due at a certain hour, but one child is not ready 
with his. Without waiting for an explanation, and 
without giving the child an opportunity to make 
one, the quick, sharp tongue of the teacher ad- 
ministers a stinging reprimand or rebuke that cuts 
to the quick in the soul of the child. Sickness in 
the home and the assumption of new duties in the 
home as a result — duties whose performance was 
vastly more imperative and more praiseworthy 
than the writing of the paper could have been, was 
the legitimate excuse. But the teacher has lost 
her opportunity to laud a moral act, and has been 



64 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

guilty of an immoral one herself, thus estranging 
from her an innocent child, and lowering herself 
in the esteem of the whole class, which is quick to 
recognize and resent injustice on the teacher's part. 

Not only the motive, but the degree of provocation 
and the strength of the temptation of the child, need 
to be understood before the teacher can act intelli- 
gently, and helpfully to the offender. But when 
these facts have been learned she cannot afford 
to be lax in the performance of her duty through 
fear or favor. It is her business to see, if possible, 
that the child shall reap as he has sovm. 

Punishment should be reformative, not retribu- 
tive. — But even here a third principle needs to 
be observed, namely : That punishment in the 
schoolroom should be reformative, and not merely 
retributive. In granting this principle we are only 
asserting that a child who needs punishment in 
school is entitled to the same consideration that 
criminals are now accorded by intelligent wardens 
in our leading penal institutions. Here every 
effort is made through work, recreation, music, 
books, magazines, lectures, and sermons to reform 
the prisoner. Crime is thought of as a disease, 
as something pathological, demanding treatment 
that will restore a normal condition once more. 
It is not even assumed that a convict is without 
honor. Thomas Mott Osborne, at Sing Sing, has 
already taught the world that the " honor system " 
is not impractical even in a penitentiary. How 
much more may we expect that ordinary public 
school children will respond to treatment which 
appeals to their honor ! 



THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 65 

Ptmishment should be suited to the individuality 
of the child. — It should be remembered, too, that 
treatment which is reformative for one child guilty 
of a given offense, may be wholly unsuited to the 
needs of another whose offense appears to be iden- 
tical with that of the first. I recall a school of my 
boyhood in which the teacher made a rule requiring 
all pupils who had whispered without permission 
to remain in at recess, the pupils being placed on 
their own honor to stay in when they had whispered. 
On one occasion a boy, ordinarily dutiful and obedient, 
was seen to stay in his place when most of the pupils 
went out at recess. The teacher, surprised to see 
him a self-confessed whisperer, went to him, asked 
why he was there, and then said, " You may be 
excused now, but I hope you won't whisper again." 
This simple treatment of the case melted him to 
tears, and was probably the most efficacious punish- 
m.ent that could have been administered to him ; 
but there were other boys in the same school that 
would have boasted under similar circumstances 
of how " easy " the teacher was, and how he was 
" worked." Certain it is that that teacher knew 
some of his boys well enough not to try to break 
up an objectionable habit of theirs by such gentle 
means. The principle holds. It always pays to 
study the individual child — his training and his 
temperament — and then to resort to such dis- 
ciplinary measures as will be most effective in his 
case, regardless of what may be required to accom- 
plish this purpose with another child. 

Arnold Tompkins quoted. — Arnold Tompkins, 
in his very philosophical little volume on School 



G(> MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Management^ a generation ago, made it clear that 
the problem of all discipHne is to enable the student 
to become at one with himself, and in unity with 
the school once more His immoral acts have broken 
the unity and it must be restored. The pupil is 
not to say to the teacher, " I have broken a law; 
what are you going to do about it ? '* But the 
teacher must throw the responsibility and worry 
where it belongs — upon the head of the offender. 
Ee must find an answer to the question, " What 
am I to do about it ? '' Perhaps it will be necessary 
for him to remain out of class a few hours, or even 
out of school a few days, while he wrestles with 
his own spirit and endeavors to find an answer to 
his question. He can well afford to specialize in 
this subject for a time, for in so doing he will help 
to purge his own soul. His acts have broken the 
spiritual unity of the school. Only his can restore it. 
Children profit by seeing their acts universalized. 
— But the average child has never been analytical 
enough in his thinking to appreciate the fact that 
the school is a spiritual unity ; that the laws of the 
school are not arbitrary, but moral laws ; that con- 
formity to these laws is demanded of every one, 
not because of the whim or caprice of the teacher, 
but because of their universal obligation and ap- 
plication. He needs to be led to see this truth when 
the occasion is offered. His acts must be uni- 
versalized before he can see their significance. 
Perhaps he has played truant for a half day. The 
spirit that actuated him was individual and selfish 
when he did it. But truancy universalized ab- 
solutely destroys the school. There are no longer 



THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE d^ 

any pupils and need be no teacher under such cir- 
cumstances. If one child may stay away, all may 
stay away. No one child has a right not possessed 
by the rest. If there is to be a school, there is a 
moral obligation resting upon every child to be 
present. Denying this obligation destroys the 
school. 

Perhaps the offense is that of throwing paper 
wads. It looks innocent enough to the thoughtless 
child. But he must be made to see that such indoor 
sport is denied him, not because it is so bad in it- 
self, but because such conduct, if universalized, 
would destroy the school. In fact, as a pupil ma- 
tures in his thinking he must gradually measure 
and judge his acts and his intended acts by this 
standard : " If every pupil were to exercise the 
right to do as I am doing, would it make the school 
better or worse ? Could there be any school under 
such conditions 1 " He will not necessarily be- 
come moral in his conduct because he sees this 
truth, but its clear perception by him is often the 
first necessary step for him to take before he can 
give cheerful obedience to the laws of the school. 

Corporal punishment sometimes necessary. — 
Reason, moral suasion, sympathy, and love are not 
the only factors, however, deserving a place in the 
discipline of a schooL " Soft " methods will often 
get results, but not always. Some children must 
be reached through bodily sensations of pain and 
discomfort. Corporal punishment is sometimes nec- 
essary. When it is needed, it is a great misfortune 
for the child himself if a statute of the state or a 
rule of the board of education keeps the teacher from 



68 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

administering it. " Spare the rod and spoil the 
child " is a maxim reminiscent of the days when 
child psychology was little known, and discipline 
was harsh, often cruel, and essentially blind and 
corporeal. But it cannot safely be abandoned 
today just because injustice was often wrought in 
its name. When other means fail this one may suc- 
ceed. An occasional child can be found who seems 
to have respect for nothing short of superior force. 
Bodily pain may deter such a pupil from wrongdoing 
and compel an outward conformity to legitimate 
authority long enough to permit the cultivation of 
an inward state appropriate to it. 

Though corporal punishment is really necessary 
at times, it must be administered with caution, and 
always with a reformative end in mind. It is 
hazardous to inflict it in anger. There is at such 
times a grave danger that it may be cruelly ex- 
cessive ; that actual bodily violence and lasting 
injury may be done the child. It ought not be 
done in the presence of the school. This is such a 
humiliating act that the otherwise beneficent results 
to be expected are likely to be offset by the resent- 
ment aroused under such circumstances. Much 
better is it to seek the privacy of the principal's 
oflRce, or the classroom after the school has been 
dismissed, and there, in the presence of one or two 
witnesses, to inflict such punishment as may be 
deserved. 

Forms of punishment to avoid. — "Boxing a child's 
ears and slapping a child in the face are so fraught 
with danger to his hearing on the one hand, and so 
provocative of anger and desire for revenge on the 



. THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 69 

other, that it is scarcely conceivable that any moral 
good can ever result from such punishment. For, 
whatever the form of punishment, its object must 
be to chasten, to refine, to purge the spirit and soul 
of the child. If its effect is to leave him defiant, 
bitter, revengeful, and filled with hatred, it has 

failed- ,.^ ^. 

Discipline, like instruction, a difficult process. — - 

Lastly, always remember, sUghtly adapting the 

words of a great thinker, that to educate rightly is 

not a simple and easy thing, but a complex and 

difficult thing, the hardest task which devolves 

upon a parent or a teacher. The rough-and-ready 

style of management of children is practicable by 

the meanest and most uncultivated of intellects. 

" Slaps and sharp words are penalties that suggest 

themselves aUke to the least reclaimed barbarian 

and the most stohd peasant. Even brutes can use 

this method of disciphne, as you may see m the 

crrowl or half-bite with which a bitch will check a 

?oo-exigeant puppy. But if you would carry out 

with success a rational and civilized system, >rou 

must be prepared for considerable mental exertion 

— for some study, some ingenuity, some patience, 

some self-control. You will have habitually to trace 

the consequences of conduct — to consider what 

are the results which in adult hfe follow certain 

kinds of acts ; and then ... to devise methods by 

which parallel results shall be entailed on the para iel 

acts of your children. You will daily be called 

upon to analyze the motives of juvenile conduct; 

you must distinguish between acts that are really 

good and those which, though externally simulating 



JO MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

them, proceed from inferior impulses ; while you 
must be ever on your guard against the cruel mis- 
take not unfrequently made, of translating neutral 
acts into transgressions, or ascribing worse feelings 
than were entertained. You must more or less 
modify your method to suit the disposition of each 
child ; and must be prepared to make further 
modifications as each child's disposition enters on 
a new phase. Your faith will often be taxed to 
maintain the requisite perseverance in a course 
which seems to produce little or no effect. Espe- 
cially if you are dealing with children who have been 
wrongly treated, you must be prepared for a 
lengthened trial of patience before succeeding with 
better methods ; seeing that that which is not easy 
even where a right state of feeling has been estab- 
lished from the beginning becomes doubly difficult 
when a wrong state of feeling has to be set right." 

Suggestions from biology. — The conscientious 
teacher who is really sensitive to the moral delin- 
quencies of children may find some comfort in the 
suggestion that we need not expect from young 
children any great amount of moral goodness. 
While a young mother may take exception to the 
charge that her child is a young savage, within 
certain limits the charge may truthfully be made 
of all children. The so-called " culture-epoch " 
theory is that every child must pass through the 
stages through which mankind has passed in its 
development from savagery and barbarism to com- 
plete civilization. The biologist refers to it as the 
biogenic law, with special reference to the individual's 
recapitulation of the growth stages of the race on 



THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 71 

its physical side. That " ontogeny recapitulates 
phylogeny " is his very technical statement of the 
same law. Biologically this may be seen in the 
evolution of embryonic life. Its historic counter- 
part is likely to be illustrated again and again in 
most nurseries and on more playgrounds. 

Such studies as Hall and the whole school of 
investigators inspired by him have made, have 
given us a mass of evidence concerning the cruelty, 
the lying, and other faults of children. In the hght 
of this evidence we are less surprised and less dis- 
tressed by the outcropping of these primal faults 
than we should otherwise be. A boy of fourteen 
with a reputation for veracity, and a joy to his 
home because of his truthfulness, now laughs at 
the tale of the Hes he told as a young child. But 
he was a great trial to his parents for a few years, 
for in spite of their desire to deal wisely with him 
they could not see for a time how a child with such 
a grievous fault could ever fulfill their hopes and 
expectations concerning him. Now the same parents 
know well enough that it is not a shocking thing 
for a young child to lie, though it would be shock- 
ing, indeed, for a child's moral development to be 
arrested in the lying stage. 

Hall 1 shows us that many cases of apparent 
cruelty are really only evidences of experimental 
curiosity " due to ignorance and to an impulse 
which, when properly directed, is the prototype 
of scientific investigation." A boy of 8 or 9 is re- 
ported as shutting a squirrel in a dog's kennel " to 
see how long it could live without food." He was 

1 Aspects of Child Life and Education, pp. 103-104. 



72 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

" much interested in Tanner's fast of forty days, 
which was the incentive." Another boy, 8-12, 
" broke chickens' legs several times, but always 
set them. Became a surgeon." Examples of this 
sort may be multiplied, all tending to confirm the 
theory, that what may at times to the superficial 
observer appear to be nothing more than an ex- 
hibition of wanton cruelty, may in reality be at- 
tributable to such a legitimate instinct as curiosity 
which we wish to keep alive and active as long as 
possible. 

The teacher dare not complacently close her eyes 
to the inattention, the lying, the cruelty, or any 
other shortcoming of the child at any stage, but her 
peace of mind will hkely be greater, her faith a more 
optimistic one, and her treatment of the child a 
more rational one, if she remember that in every 
child there are deep-seated racial instincts and 
impulses cropping out from time to time ; that adult 
standards of morality are the results of a long period 
of evolution, and that in the child " a higher moral- 
ity, like a higher intelligence, must be reached by a 
slow growth." The consummation of the Almighty's 
work in the creation and evolution of life is a man 
able to think, to feel, to choose, and to act in the 
light of his choices. To assist the child to become 
a man in this sense; to help him throw off racial 
and hereditary yokes as the hour comes for such 
deliverance ; to keep his own will active, and yet 
to develop it in those lines of moral freedom which 
substitute conscience and social consciousness for 
the selfish instincts and impulses constituting his 
big inheritance — is one of the privileges of the 



THROUGH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 73 

teacher every time she is confronted with a new 
problem of discipHne. 



Questions and Suggestions 

1. Show that in schoolroom discipline it is easier than 
in instruction for the teacher to meet the individual 
needs of her pupils. 

2. Teachers often think that good conduct, proper 
deportment, obedience to rules, etc., are all necessary 
means ^ to a more important end, instruction. Justify 
this view. May they as truly be regarded as ends in 
themselves ? Show. 

3. Think of the teachers you have had or observed 
who were good disciplinarians, and account for their 
success. 

4. State the three principles to observe in punishing 
children. Which one is most likely to be violated by 
parents .? by teachers .? Give reasons for your answers. 

5. Is punishment as you have seen it inflicted in school 
and home reformative in its influence, or not .? When a 
child is excluded from school for a serious offense, does 
the teacher have in mind thereby to reform him .? What 
other object may she have } 

6. In some library, look up magazine articles telling 
of the remarkable prison reforms of Thomas Mott Os- 
borne and report the same. 

7. What may teachers learn from Judge Ben Lindsey 
and his juvenile court procedure, that will be of value 
in dealing with boys in the schoolroom ? 

8. Is lying a fault as serious in a child of six years as 
in one of twelve .? Why do you think so ? 

9. In some schoolrooms pupils never whisper. Tell 
what you think of such a situation. 

10. Teachers usually send to the parents of their 



74 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

pupils periodic reports of their grade in deportment. 
Of what advantage is this custom ? Would a similar 
report from parent to teacher be of any use to anybody ? 
In what way ? 

II. Show how a sense of humor in the teacher may be 
a factor in the rational discipline of a school. 



References for Further Reading 

Bagley, William C. : Class Room Management. Macmillan Co. 

Gilbert, Charles B. : The School and Its Life: The Morale 
of the School, chapter iii. Silver, Burdett & Co. 

King, Irving: Education for Social Efficiency, chapter x. 
D. Appleton & Co. 

Rowe, Stuart H. : Habit Formation and the Science of Teach- 
ing, chapter xii. Longmans, Green & Co. 

Spencer, Herbert : Education : Essay on Moral Education. 
Hurst & Co. 

Tompkins, Arnold: School Management, pp. 157 fF. Ginn & 
Co. 



CHAPTER VI 

MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH READING AND 
LITERATURE 

The heritage of good books. — The children of 
today are fortunate indeed in the wealth of good 
wholesome reading matter open to them. There is 
hardly a basal text that is not filled from cover to 
cover with veritable literary treasures ; and the 
best schools everywhere make it possible, if not 
mandatory, for a child to read from half a dozen to 
a dozen or more good supplementary readers each 
year he spends in the pubhc schools. So much is 
done by the textbook writers, and by the school 
authorities who provide books for daily use, that 
the teacher's task in the matter of reading is reduced 
to a minimum. And yet hers is the duty of seeing 
to it that children enter this " open sesame," and 
that they learn to enjoy and to profit by this treasure 
house. 

Influence of the teacher's reading. — Perhaps 
the best guarantee that they will enjoy it is for the 
teacher herself to be a lover of good books ; to be a 
good reader and story-teller; and to be eager to 
share with her pupils the good things which she has 
found in the readers or other books. In certain 
schools, one may see a roomful of children, many of 

75 



'^e MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

them from homes in which good books are almost, 
if not wholly, unknown, sit as if under a spell, hang- 
ing upon every word of the teacher, while she reads 
with sympathetic appreciation and naturalness of 
expression some simple but powerful story suited 
to their degree of maturity and satisfying to their 
eager imaginations. The attention of pupils to a 
selection wisely chosen and well read by the teacher 
is so marked, and the results are so gratifying, that 
one wonders why teachers generally do not do more 
oral reading than is their custom above the first 
two grades. Perhaps one answer is that many 
teachers are not good readers and know it ; but the 
cultivation of few other talents could give such large 
returns in the schoolroom as this one. Another 
answer may be that teachers fear they will do vio- 
lence to a pedagogical principle in reading, even well, 
that which might be read, though poorly, by members 
of the class. The obvious reply to this objection is 
that in the intermediate and upper grades of the 
elementary school many lessons in reading should 
have as their leading aim, not so much the develop- 
ment of power through painful struggling attempts 
to read the lesson of the hour — power to read better 
some remote lesson of the future, as an appreciation 
of the truth and beauty of the selection assigned. If 
such appreciation is the major purpose of the lesson, 
and if the teacher's reading enables the class to real- 
ize this aim more promptly and more effectively, 
then let us have more reading of such lessons to the 
class by the teacher. Of course there are lessons 
whose object is not primarily appreciation and 
emotional response by the pupils. In such cases a 



THROUGH READING AND LITERATURE 'J'] 

more analytic treatment is necessary, and the re- 
quirements of good teaching are met when the 
children are led through question and answer, dis- 
section, and labored piecemeal reading to reach the 
goal set up by the teacher, for the goal may be not 
so much truth and beauty as it is a development of 
ability to discover even a portion of the truth and 
the beauty found in the particular lesson studied. 

Danger of too much analysis. — But it cannot be 
too strongly stressed that many literary selections 
in school readers embody such truth or have so much 
of beauty that it is little less than sacrilegious to use 
them as mere punching bags with which to develop 
the mental muscle of pupils, when the meaning might 
be better communicated by methods more direct. 
Even worse than this failure at times to lead a 
child to see or feel as the author would have his 
reader do, is the fact that children sometimes ac- 
quire a positive dislike for the type of literature 
which ought to mean most to them, and they do it 
because their taste is not developed by contact with 
enough selections ; because their approach is too 
often the cold, analytical approach when they need 
a sympathetic and synthetic introduction to the 
masterpiece pulsating with life and interest even 
though some details are obscure. Surely a teacher's 
success in teaching reading can not be judged by any 
standard more nearly just than this — the percent- 
age of her pupils who really learn to love such sub- 
ject matter as that taught in our best school readers 
today. 

Three types of reading material — first, sensa- 
tional fiction. — Considered from the standpoint of 



78 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

moral education, there are three types of reading 
matter. First, there is the sensational, lurid, im- 
moral type of fiction — the cheap detective story and 
the " yellow-back " novel. The relation of this 
sort of stuff to immoral conduct on the part of 
boys has been demonstrated too many times to 
need argument or exposition here. Theft, highway 
robbery, brutality, even murder have been inspired 
in thousands of instances by the false light with 
which these crimes have been invested in a type of 
reading often devoured clandestinely by boys. 

Teachers and parents need to be alert to discover 
any incipient taste for books that debase and de- 
bauch. Of course the antidote for it is an early in- 
troduction of the child to wholesome reading matter. 
Here, if anywhere, " an ounce of prevention is bet- 
ter than a pound of cure." But wholly apart from 
the need of surrounding children in home and school 
with reading matter that is elevating, there is the 
additional need of recognizing the fact that forces 
of evil in society are very active; and that in spite 
of postal laws which prohibit the use of the United 
States mails for sending anything vulgar and obscene 
in its nature, degraded men and women are constantly 
trying to corrupt the youth of their generation by 
the circulation of just such poison. The appeal is 
usually made to the curiosity of boys and girls 
concerning matters tabooed in the conversation of 
good books and homes. Prurient tastes are culti- 
vated, and salacious printed stories and books are 
circulated, about which parents are in blissful ig- 
norance, and at which they would be shocked could 
they think their children exposed to such miasma. 



THROUGH READING AND LITERATURE 79 

Somewhat more respectable but little less dan- 
gerous than the type of reading matter just men- 
tioned and surreptitiously read by thousands of 
children of unsuspecting parents, are many of our 
modern novels which revolve about the question of 
sex " flagrantly and repulsively portrayed," as one 
writer ^ has recently pointed out. The boy or girl 
of high-school age is more Hkely to gratify a morbid 
taste for these novels, but the upper grammar 
grades have many readers of the same sort of books. 
The early adolescent is entitled to literature that 
satisfies this perfectly natural longing for the por- 
trayal and history of the emotional Hfe of men 
and women, their loves and hates and reconcilia- 
tions ; but it makes a great difference whether 
the girl finds her satisfaction in the Barriers 
Burned Away and Her Broken Vow sort, or in 
those of the type of Lorna Doone, Princess Aline, 
Mill on The Floss, Ramona, The Virginian, and 
scores of others just as interesting and innocent in 
their effects. 

The Jesse James and Diamond Dick type of 
story with which so many boys regale themselves 
is not read because boys are depraved in their tastes. 
These stories are full of action and excitement for 
which boys have an innate fondness. It is possible 
to give them reading matter abounding in stories 
of heroes, action, movement, thrilHng exploits, tense 
situations, excitement even, and yet devoid of " blood 
and thunder," the melodramatic, the lurid, and all 
that tends towards depravity and crime. They 
need not read *' sissy " books. Indeed, normal 

^ Manthei Howe, in the Continent, Nov. 30, 1916. 



8o MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

red-blooded boys will not. But Kipling's Captains 
Courageous, Stevenson's Treasure Island, Cooper's 
Red Rover and Pilot, Jules Verne's Around The 
World in Eighty Days, Defoe's Rohinson Crusoe, 
and scores of others of like nature abound in the 
qualities which boys love, and yet lack the dangerous 
qualities hsted above. It is only necessary to in- 
troduce this type of fiction to prevent the mental 
and moral debauch occasioned by the other, and 
to foster in the young reader a growing taste for the 
worthwhile in books. 

Wholesome literature a second type. — A second 
type of reading is that great body of hterature which 
includes the bulk of what is written, let us hope, 
wholly safe and sane, never immoral, never degrad- 
ing, but refined, elevated, dignified, in model Eng- 
lish, satisfying varied tastes, but not written to teach 
a moral lesson and often having none to teach. Our 
school readers have a plentiful supply of this sort of 
reading matter, and our libraries abound in it. The 
child who acquires a reading habit is likely to find 
his greatest satisfaction in just this field. Poetry 
and prose, description and narration, short story 
and essay — these are forms it takes, and it occupies 
our leisure hours with pleasing entertainment and 
innocent diversion suited to the needs and tastes of 
the reader, whoever he may be. Sometimes moral 
lessons can be derived from it, but they need not be 
to justify its reading, any more than one needs to 
find a moral lesson in a painting that is well executed 
or a musical number well rendered, to justify the 
pleasure got from it. 

Not a little futile teaching has been done in at- 



THROUGH READING AND LITERATURE 8 1 

tempting to lead pupils to find some " lesson " in 
poems that were never written with a distinct moral 
purpose. If they are real literature, if they are 
beautiful in language and imagery, there may be 
excuse enough in these facts for reading them. 
" Beauty is its own excuse for being." Truth, 
beauty, and goodness are three abstractions with 
which we justly concern ourselves, because the 
true, the beautiful, and the good are three aspects 
of life or three qualities of it that need development 
in us to give us proper balance. It is too much to 
expect them all three to be equally well exhibited 
in every work of art or every Hfe that stimulates 
us to react upon them. The teacher who keeps this 
thought in mind will be a better guide of children as 
she leads thern through the maze of books and 
stories comprising our literary heritage, for she will 
understand that she dares to teach much that has 
no moral in it, provided it be true or beautiful and 
have no deleterious effect upon its reader. Much 
that is beautiful in nature, even in our own surround- 
ings, escapes our attention and would never give us 
the joy it has in store for us, were its charm not dis- 
covered by some painter or some poet and then held 
up before our surprised eyes to give pleasure where 
we little dreamed of finding it. The skillful novelist, 
in Hke manner, may seize upon an age, an epoch, 
a neighborhood, a people, and find in it the material 
for a story whose reading may '' drive dull Care 
away," and strip life of its sordidness for us for an 
hour, if it result in nothing more and nothing better. 
There are times when we all need just such a retreat 
from the sterner realities and competitive struggles. 



82 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

to get rest for weary frames and jaded nerves. The 
child who grows up without a taste for Hterature 
that can relax him at times without in any way de- 
basing, is as much to be pitied as one who has never 
learned to use the beneficent tonic of play. Reading 
of this sort has a big place in life, and the child who 
learns to use it for such ends is pretty well fortified 
against a good many dangers to his moral nature 
likely to be encountered as he seeks necessary re- 
laxation at times in other pursuits that bid for his 
leisure. 

Third type — lessons with a moral or ethical 
content. — A third type of reading is that which 
has a message, a moral lesson, a distinct truth so 
expressed as to take hold upon the feelings as well 
as the intellect. It is this characteristic of a literary 
selection with a moral content that gives it a dy- 
namic force which is less Hkely to characterize didactic 
teaching. The latter is addressed to the intellect 
only; the former to the emotions. Action is more 
Hkely to be governed by feeling than intelligence, 
or to state it in other words, intellect plus emotion 
is much more effective in shaping conduct than in- 
tellect alone. To illustrate this point, think of the 
effect resulting from a bare dogmatic assertion to a 
child that one who is guilty of lying frequently will 
not be believed even when he does tell the truth. 
Then recall the effect produced by your reading of 
the fable of the boy who, while tending sheep, 
shouted, " A wolf! a wolf! " on successive days just 
to enjoy the running of the men who were deceived 
by his shouts, and your later impression, when the 
boy called in vain for the help he needed but did not 



THROUGH READING AND LITERATURE 83 

get because those who heard his cries did not beHeve 
him. There is a propulsive appeal about this simple 
fable which takes hold of young children and vi- 
tahzes and energizes the truth in such a way as really 
to shape character. Didactic teaching cannot ac- 
complish the same result with children to whom this 
fable makes its big appeal. 

That one gradually becomes like his ideal, like the 
thing or the character he loves and keeps before him, 
is a truth that is preached and taught and stated in 
many ways by older men and women to the younger 
generation. But those of us who jfirst studied Haw- 
thorne's " Ernest and the Great Stone Face " at 
the psychological moment, probably got an impres- 
sion that was more completely transmuted into 
character and conduct than any other teaching of 
this truth to which we were exposed. 

Paul states for adults some profound truths con- 
cerning charity, its relation to other Christian 
virtues, its leading characteristics, and its accom- 
plishments ; but nothing he says about it can make 
the vigorous appeal, and stamp the character of 
youth to the same degree, that LowelFs " Vision of 
Sir Launfal '' may do. It is an interesting story, this, 
from the day Sir Launfal starts out in the pride and 
haughtiness of youth in search of the Holy Grail, 
until he returns an old man to find the object of his 
search so near his starting point. It is a marvelous 
transformation of character he undergoes from the 
time he tosses a leper a piece of gold in scorn to the 
day he learns that, 

" Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, 
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." 



84 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Lowell has so embodied this truth in a poem of 
such action, movement, personal characters, appro- 
priate imagery, felicitous language, that it gives 
sensuous pleasure and preaches a powerful sermon 
at the same time, and preaches it, too, without caus- 
ing his readers to feel too keenly that he is preaching. 

The oft-repeated story of " Midas and the Golden 
Touch '' is another typical lesson in reading of this 
third type. Few other stories have so vividly 
taught youth of countless generations the truth that 
gold, even in boundless store, is a poor substitute 
for life and love and children, all common possessions 
of priceless value, but too often undervalued by 
men and women bent on the accumulation of gold 
or other material wealth. 

Endless examples might be given, selected from 
almost any of our good school readers, of selections 
which, if well taught, cannot fail to strengthen the 
pupil in some virtue. Indeed our supremest aim 
is, and should be, so to establish him. In building 
his character there are few better ways than that 
of systematically placing before the pupil moral 
situations embodied in story and dealing with the 
virtues and vices peculiar to each period of his un- 
folding. When these are presented in such form 
and such language as to grip his interest, they lead 
to moral reactions which, repeated often enough, 
develop into habits of will and forms of conduct 
morally worthy. Legends, myths, fairy tales, fables, 
parables, allegories, to say nothing of poetry, short 
stories, novels, etc., are so rich in spiritual meanings 
that we are almost overwhelmed by the richness 
and variety of material open to us. 



THROUGH READING AND LITERATURE 85 

Whether we wish to develop our classes in the 
virtues of kindness, industry, perseverance, ac- 
curacy, patience, love of truth, obedience, courage, 
loyalty, patriotism, economy, ambition, heroism, 
courtesy, charity; or to fortify them against the 
vices which may be catalogued as the opposites of 
these virtues, it is possible to find a half dozen or 
more selections appropriate to the teaching of any 
one of these. It would indeed be a profitable exer- 
cise for any teacher to take the basic readers she 
uses, and as many supplementary texts as she may 
find available, and run through them hastily to 
classify the lessons upon some such basis. Suppose 
it is patriotism, love of country, love for the flag, 
or some such civic virtue that it is desirable to 
strengthen through literature. Think of the ma- 
terial available for the purpose. There are our 
so-called national anthem, " America," which ought 
to be memorized by every school boy and girl be- 
fore he leaves the grades, " Star Spangled Banner,^' 
" Paul Revere's Ride," " Barbara Frietchie," " Ar- 
nold Winkelried," "Old Ironsides," "Song of 
Marion's Men," "The Man without a Country," 
" The Blue and the Gray," Lincoln's " Gettysburg 
Address," " The Arsenal at Springfield," " Concord 
Hymn," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," 
Washington's " Farewell Address," " The Battle of 
Blenheim," the Declaration of Independence, and 
still others that will easily suggest themselves or be 
discovered by the teacher who is on the alert for 
selections that will reenforce a lesson she is trying 
to teach. No effort is here made to indicate the 
grade for which the above lessons are most appro- 



86 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

priate, but in whatever grade any one of them 
is taught, it will be found helpful to review, for 
purposes of comparison and reenforcement of the 
teaching, such selections dealing with kindred themes 
as have already been taught. 

Importance of discovering what children volun- 
tarily read. — Teachers are usually more or less in 
the dark as to what their pupils read of their own 
volition. Some time spent each year with each new 
class in attempting to find out just what the pupils 
have read, and what kind of literature appeals to 
them most, will enable the teacher to render far 
larger service in this field. Some children will be 
found who have done little or no reading save the 
lessons assigned in school. Their interests have been 
in other directions. They have not yet discovered 
that literature is so broad in its scope that something 
has been written that deals with their particular 
interests. In such cases the teacher's problem is 
not first of all to introduce these pupils to literature 
that is distinctly moral and ethical in its nature ; 
but to induce them to read something, in the hope 
that a reading habit may be established and grad- 
ually be directed into proper lines. Of course, the 
psychological method to use is to acquaint the 
child with some story book or books which deal 
with the thing he is interested in, wherever this 
can be done. 

A suggestive approach to the interest of the child 
who dislikes books. — A boy much interested in 
horses, e.g., might find Black Beauty or Colliery 
Jim or Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey his gate- 
way into wider fields of reading. Incidentally, in 



THROUGH READING AND LITERATURE 87 

the first two of these books he would probably find 
that which would result in his more humane treat- 
ment of horses and even mules, as long as he lives. 
A child with any of the instincts of a naturalist or 
a nature-lover would find in the writings of Long and 
Payne and Seton-Thompson and Roosevelt that 
which would ultimately take him into other pleasant 
and profitable paths through books. Perhaps a 
boy is fond of dogs but not of books. If so, he could 
not make a better beginning than by reading the 
following books whose central figures would com- 
mand his interest and respect from the outset: 
Scally, by Ian Hay, Muir's Stickeen, London's The 
Call of the Wild, Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle, and 
Ouida's A Dog of Flanders. 

We repeat that the foregoing books are not so 
valuable as hterature, and certainly do not all 
represent the highest and best in literature; but 
they are all wholesome, interesting, and at least worth 
while in themselves. If in addition they may be 
made the introduction to a still better and richer 
field for boys who have hitherto not found in books 
anything satisfying, then their reading will surely 
be a praiseworthy accomplishment. 



Questions and Suggestions 

1. Discuss the influence upon pupils of a teacher's 
love for good literature. 

2. What can be said for and against the teacher's 
practice of reading much to her pupils .? 

3. Distinguish between development of power to in- 
terpret and express thought, and appreciation of truth 



88 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

and beauty, as aims in reading. Are they in any measure 
mutually interdependent ? 

4. Explain, and if possible illustrate, your under- 
standing of the difference between the analytical approach 
and the synthetic approach to a reading lesson. 

5. Have you ever discovered children reading anything 
positively dangerous to their morals .? Have you ever 
had a railway news agent attempt to sell you reading 
matter that was immoral } In what other ways is such 
literature disseminated } 

6. Enumerate the characteristics literature must have 
to appeal to the average boy. 

7. Is the aim to give pleasure a worthy moral aim in 
literature ? 

8. Show the moral value of Macaulay's "Horatius at 
the Bridge"; Bryant's "Thanatopsis" ; Wordsworth's 
"Daffodils"; Southey's "The Inchcape Rock"; Long- 
fellow's "The Village Blacksmith"; Emerson's "For- 
bearance"; Field's "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod." 
Which of these selections must be chosen upon other 
grounds than its moral value .? 

9. From the readers in use in your school name a half 
dozen selections which seem to you neither moral nor 
immoral in their effects upon a class. Show how the 
teaching of such an unmoral selection may be either 
detrimental or helpful to the character of a child. 

10. Topic for debate : The moral worth of a selection 
should have greater weight than its literary excellence 
in determining its place in a textbook in reading. 

11. Read "We are Seven." What is its "ethical 
core " .? Should you try to teach this " lesson " explicitly 
or implicitly .? Explain. 

12. Teach Kipling's "Recessional" to the institute 
as to a grammar grade class. Show what moral and even 
religious effects may be secured through the teaching of 
this selection. What makes it timely now ? 



THROUGH READING AND LITERATURE 89 



References for Further Reading 

Bates, Arlo : Talks on Literature: Why We Study Literature. 

Houghton Mifflin Co. 
Bryant, Sara Cone : How to Tell Stories to Children. Hough- 
ton Mifflin Co. 
Engleman, J. O. : Outside Reading. English Journal, January, 

1917. 
Haliburton and Smith: Teaching Poetry in the Grades. 

Houghton Mifflin Co. 
Hillis, Newell Dwight: Great Books and Life Teachers. 

Fleming H. Revell Co. 
McLellan, J. A. : The Ethical Element in Literature, and 

How to Make the Most of It in Teaching, in Proceedings 

N. E. A. 1894, pp. 71-84. 
McMuRRY, Charles A. : Special Method in Reading for the 

Grades : Educational Value of Literature. Macmillan Co. 
Shuman, Edwin L. : How to Judge a Book : especially chapter ix, 

Morality in Art. Houghton Mifflin Co. 
Tompkins, Arnold: Literary Interpretations: The Nature of 

Literature. Houghton Mifflin Co. 



CHAPTER VII 

MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY 

Opportunity for the exercise of the moral judg- 
ment. — If Tennyson was right when he said, 

" Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process 
of the suns," 

the student of history has the high privilege of thus 
discovering this " one increasing purpose," and of 
widening his thought at the same time. He cer- 
tainly cannot study history in the better schools of 
today without the necessity of exercising his moral 
judgment at frequent intervals. For history is no 
longer presented as a bare chronology of events, nor 
even as a mere record of military achievements, vic- 
tories, and defeats upon the field of battle in suc- 
cessive wars. It is rather an attempt to explain the 
present in the light of the past ; to see the genesis 
of civilizations and their later developments, for the 
bearing they may have upon subsequent events ; to 
understand the genius of nations and epochs, for 
the lessons they may teach the generation now 
living. It must concern itself with cause and ef- 
fect, as well as fact and time and place. It teaches, 
as few subjects can teach, the mutual dependence 

90 



MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY 



91 



of nations, and paves the way for an appreciation 
of what we have learned to call the great " brother- 
hood of man." It discloses the fact that the great 
stream of modern civihzation has been fed and 
swollen by smaller streams coming from sources, 
many of them remote in time and place, and yet 
bearing in their currents elements distinctive and 
unique to mingle with still other elements required 
to make a stream of the color and characteristics 
that are known today. 

Moral relationships writ large in the pages of 
history. — Morality is a matter of human relation- 
ships. In the narrower sense, it involves the re- 
lations of a man to his fellows, but in history these 
relationships are " writ large " and concern the 
relation of individuals to nations and the still wider 
relations of nations to each other. On the one side, 
the record of every individual man and woman whose 
achievements have been significant enough to be- 
come a matter of consequence to posterity is such as 
to offer much that is worthy of emulation; or, on 
the other hand, it may serve equally well as a warn- 
ing and a deterrent in present-day life. The his- 
tory of nations, viewed in the large, presents exactly 
the same sort of contrasts, and makes apparent the 
rewards of virtue and the penalties of vice. " The 
soul that sinneth, it shall surely die," was written of 
old and has been exemphfied throughout the ages; 
but that " the wages of sin is death " is just as true 
of nations as of men, and universal history illus- 
trates the truth even more clearly. It is this fact 
which makes its study one of such moral worth even 
to the elementary student. It is not alone in the 



92 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

history of Sodom and Gomorrah as narrated in the 
Old Testament, but in the secular narratives of the 
fall of the Assyrian and Babylonian monarchies, 
and the later rise and fall of even Greece and Rome, 
that this lesson may be impressed. 

Illustrations. — In the latter half of the eighteenth 
century Goldsmith, writing of his 

"Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain," 

and explaining why its charms were fled, generalized 
the truth in the following well-known hnes : 

"111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey. 
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay; 
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade; 
A breath can make them, as a breath has made; 
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride. 
When once destroyed, can never be supplied." ^ 

The student of history is more than once reminded 
of the poet's words, for there are few truths which 
stand out more clearly than this : that a nation 
cannot have strength to endure long when its in- 
dividual units, the common citizens, are lacking in 
moral fiber. Up to a certain limit the accumulation 
of wealth may be a wholesome thing for a man or 
a nation, making possible a certain degree of leisure 
for the enjoyment of things of cultural and spiritual 
value. But beyond this it becomes an obsession, 
saps manhood of its virility, undermines character, 
robs industry of its just due, and tends towards the 
enjoyment of voluptuous ease and the satisfaction 
often of low and base desires. The history of 

i"The Deserted Village." 



MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY 93 

Greece subsequent to the conquests of Alexander is 
an illustration in point ; and the economic and moral 
decline of Rome beginning even before the end of 
the Second Punic War is a better one. One his- 
torian^ says: "Even a glorious war tends to de- 
morahze society. It corrupts morals, and creates 
extremes of wealth and poverty. Extreme poverty 
lowers the moral tone further. So does quick-won 
and illegitimate wealth. Then the moral decay of 
the citizens shows in the state as a poHtical disease. 
The Second Punic War teaches this lesson to the 
full. . . . In the ruin of the small farmer, Hannibal 
had dealt his enemy a deadher blow than he ever 
knew." 

Another popular text,^ treating the same period 
and commenting upon the commencement of eco- 
nomic decay in Rome, says : 

"Wealth acquired by industry works only good; but 
wealth acquired by plunder, fraud, and the spirit of 
gaming, always corrupts : of this truth Roman history, 
from this time on, is a conspicuous witness. The Romans 
had now tasted the sweets of ill-gotten riches, and the 
plunder of foreign lands became more and more their 
governing motive. By fair means and by foul, great 
estates were build up at the expense of the free peasantry ; 
slave labor, that form of labor which is the most im- 
mediately profitable, crowded out free labor; the culti- 
vation of the soil itself was neglected, and what had been 
well-tilled fields became desert or swamp or expanse of 
pasture land. From this point of time commences the 
decay of the Itahan peasantry, and along with it of 
ItaHan agriculture." 

'•West, Ancient JVorld, pp. 351-352. 

2 Myers and Allen, Ancient History, p. loi. 



94 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Moral involved in American history. — But while 
the successful teacher of American history will find 
much material for moral instruction in the stories 
of the rise and fall of older civiKzations, some of 
which will very properly be presented as a back- 
ground for the history of the United States, it is in 
the history of our own country that she must find 
her chief ethical situations and lead her class to 
sense them as such. She will not need to moraHze 
about them, but she does need to be aware of the 
moral and religious elements involved, that she may 
present them with deserved attention to their 
ethical bearings. Indeed, she ought to lead her 
pupils to see that this country had its very beginnings 
in the religious devotion of a few groups of men and 
women who left the mother country, braved the 
dangers of the sea, the wilderness, the Indian; of 
famine, and rigorous winters ; of sickness and 
death ; of every conceivable sort of hardship inci- 
dent to a pioneer life, that they might establish in 
their political life the principles which were so dear 
to them. The Pilgrim fathers in New England, the 
CathoHcs in Maryland, the Jesuits in the Mississippi 
Valley, all alike in kind, if unlike in degree, suc- 
ceeded in laying foundations of government broad 
and deep because they had so much at stake in 
their building. The superstructure erected has 
been so enduring because the foundations laid 
rested upon principles of such magnitude. 

The history of the United States from its very 
beginnings is an exhibition of the moral qualities of 
courage, perseverance, industry, frugality, justice, 
and self-reliance. With these have been displayed 



MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY 95 

a rare belief in the benefits of education and a re- 
ligious fervor and spirit not found among many 
peoples of the world. 

The preamble of the Constitution of the United 
States states the reasons for its establishment as 
follows : " in order to form a more perfect union ; 
establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, pro- 
vide for the common defense, promote the general 
welfare, and insure the blessings of liberty to our- 
selves and our posterity." It will be observed 
that these are moral ends, including unity, justice, 
peace, common weal, and liberty. They are all 
essential to a democracy like our own. Teachers 
can find numerous illustrations under the work- 
ing of the constitution to show its relation 
and the relation of our national government to 
these ends. 

The whole slavery question, from the first im- 
portation of slaves to Virginia in 1619 to Lincoln's 
Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, centers round 
a growing and changing conception of justice. 
The multiplication of laws with reference to the 
labor of men, women, and children is another evi- 
dence of a changing notion as to what constitutes 
social justice. The activities of such organizations 
as the W. C. T. U. and the Anti-Saloon League of 
America, and the municipal, state, and federal 
legislation of recent years, restricting the sale of 
alcoholic liquors, and in numerous instances pro- 
hibiting it, and banishing it from whole states, re- 
flect the growing place which the moral ideas of 
temperance and justice occupy in the thinking of 
our people. 



96 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Significance of personal examples of moral acts. 

— More important than a perception of laws that are 
so operative in the Hfe of states and nations as to 
guarantee ethical results, at least more important 
for elementary school students, are those " exam- 
ples of heroism, of self-sacrifice, of love of country, 
of devotion to principles at the greatest cost," 
with which the pages of history are filled. " Not 
only do these teach children the meaning of virtue 
in the most impressive way, they present examples 
for imitation and inspire the learner to follow. 
The behavior of Socrates before his judges or of 
Giordano Bruno at the stake, the conduct of the 
Lacedaemonians at Thermopylae or of the American 
farmers at Bunker Hill, Sir Philip Sidney dying, 
offering the cup of water to the wounded soldier 
beside him, or Sir Thomas More going to his death 
for the sake of conscience : incidents like these re- 
veal the depth of the moral life of mankind as 
flashes of lightning illuminate a dark forest at night. 
They not only show what is noble action, but touch 
us with the contagion of heroic deeds, thus making 
for moral culture as well as ethical instruction." 
What schoolboy has not been stirred to the depths 
of his soul by the reply of Henry Clay to those of his 
friends who advised him to abandon a course he 
was pursuing because it would injure his chances 
for the presidency, when he said, " I would rather 
be right than president." And what a new mean- 
ing the term patriotism has had for many of us since 
we learned of the dying words of the patriot, Nathan 
Hale, upon the scaffold, " I regret that I have but 
one life to give for my country." 



MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY 97 

Lecky's stress on the moral aspects of history. — 

Lecky, the English historian, sets forth the poHtical 
value of history in an essay of more than fifty pages, 
which closes with these words : 

*' Permit me, in conclusion, to say that its most precious 
lessons are moral ones. . . . Mistakes in statesmanship, 
military triumphs or disasters, no doubt affect materially 
the prosperity of nations, but their permanent political 
well-being is essentially the outcome of their moral state. 
Its foundation is laid in pure domestic life, in commercial 
integrity, in a high standard of moral worth and of public 
spirit ; in simple habits, in courage, uprightness, and self- 
sacrifice, in a certain soundness and moderation of judg- 
ment, which springs quite as much from character as 
from intellect. If you would form a wise judgment of 
the future of a nation, observe carefully whether these 
qualities are increasing or decaying. Observe especially 
what qualities count for most in public life. Is character 
becoming of greater or less importance .? Are the men 
who obtain the highest posts in the nation men of whom 
in private life and irrespective of party competent judges 
speak with genuine respect ? Are they men of sincere 
convictions, sound judgment, consistent lives, indisputable 
integrity, or are they men who have won their positions 
by the arts of a demagogue or an intriguer; men of 
nimble tongues and not earnest beliefs — skilful, above 
all things, in spreading their sails to each passing breeze 
of popularity ? Such considerations as these are apt to 
be forgotten in the fierce excitement of a party contest; 
but if history has any meaning, it is such considerations 
that affect most vitally the permanent well-being of 
communities, and it is by observing this moral current 
that you can best cast the horoscope of a nation." ^ 

^ The Political Value of History. 



98 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Froude quoted. — Froude, in his essay on history, 
says : 

"It is a voice forever sounding across the centuries 
the laws of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners 
change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written 
on the tablets of eternity. For every false word or 
unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust or 
vanity, the price has to be paid at last ; not always by 
the chief offenders, but paid by some one. Justice and 
truth alone endure and live. Injustice and falsehood 
may be long-lived, but doomsday comes at last to them, 
in French revolutions and other terrible ways." 

And again : 

"The addrescj of history is less to the understanding 
than to the higher emotions. We learn in it to sympa- 
thize with what is great and good ; we learn to hate what 
is base. In the anomalies of fortune we feel the mystery 
of our mortal existence ; and in the companionship of the 
illustrious natures who have shaped the fortunes of the 
world, we escape from the littlenesses which cling to the 
round of common life, and our minds are tuned in a higher 
and nobler key." 

Patriotism an outcome of history-teaching. — 

Almost every one who has thought about the matter 
at all will admit that one aim of teaching history 
is to teach patriotism. This, of course, is but one 
phase of the more general moral aim, for patriotism 
is a moral quality. The student who is led to 
compass the history of his own country ; and to 
know the price that has been paid in hardship and 
struggle, privation, danger, sacrifice, blood, and 



MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY 99 

death by countless explorers, early settlers, pioneers, 
and frontiersmen in laying the foundations of this 
country, must be dull indeed if he fail to respond 
with patriotic pride. Ours is a rich heritage of 
privilege, opportunity, and blessing. The liberties 
we enjoy have been bought with a price. The free 
institutions we have are not the result of caprice 
and accident. If America is but another word for 
opportunity, it. is so because our forefathers made 
it so. We tend to take it all for granted, and to 
miss the obligation it imposes unless we deepen our 
understanding of its significance through a study 
of the slow and painful process by which it has de- 
veloped. The pupil who identifies himself sympa- 
thetically with the men and movements having a 
part in the drama enacted upon the New World 
stage, must be taken out of his own little self, and 
must grow larger and freer to take in this larger 
and freer world. The greatness and the goodness 
of this republic can not be grasped with ease ; but 
it can be partially understood by the student who 
begins with its beginnings in the establishment of a 
few small settlements huddled along the Atlantic 
seaboard, with little intercourse, and less unity. 

Then the story is one of growth in unity and 
numbers, of fighting Indians, felling forests, build- 
ing roads and cities, conquering foreign foes, making 
constitutions, establishing churches and schools, 
organizing territories, carving out states, surveying 
lands and establishing boundaries of townships and 
farms, crossing rivers and mountains and plains, 
pushing ever westward, overcoming nature, and 
fighting and building mile by mile and foot after 



100 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

foot, from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the 
Lakes to the Gulf. Even with this attempt to trace 
step by step the progress made here in a pohtical 
and material way, it is difficult to realize the great- 
ness of America and the beneficence of its civiliza- 
tion. We need from time to time the fervid ap- 
peals to our imaginations made by such men as 
Jacob Riis and such women as Mary Antin before 
we can thrill with passionate interest in our de- 
mocracy. The intelligent immigrant sees and 
teaches us the superiority of this liberty-loving 
" Promised Land " over the less favored despotisms 
of the Old World, and in so doing gives us a basis 
for a still finer type of patriotism. But the history 
of America rightly taught ought again and again to 
lead the pupil to resolve, as did Lincoln at Gettysburg, 
that those who lived and died in establishing our 
liberties, our institutions, our conveniences, and our 
material wealth shall not have lived and died in 
vain. 

Chauvinism to be avoided. — But along with the 
development of a patriotic pride in our country, the 
teaching of its history should result in a refinement 
and a rationalizing of that patriotism. The pupil 
should be led to see and to condemn injustice when 
it has been exhibited here. Partisan spirit and 
sectional jealousies have no place in good history- 
teaching. Bombastic pride in American institu- 
tions must not be permitted to blind the eyes of 
pupils to the virtues of other nations. Patriotism 
is beautiful but chauvinism is as deserving of ridicule 
here as it was when its founder praised his monarch 
in undeserved and exaggerated phrase. If there are 



MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY loi 

dangers in our political institutions, and if the Orient 
has such lessons for our times as Rabindranath 
Tagore has pointed out in his lecture tour across 
the continent, our pupils will not be less truly moral 
or American because they see these dangers and 
become more oblivious of national boundaries, and 
more nearly international in their sympathies and 
in their thinking. 

Events that have occurred since August, 1914, 
and particularly since the United States entered the 
Great War, in April, 1917, all point to the necessity 
of our teaching the pupils in our schools henceforth 
to think and feel in international terms. The world 
has dwindled in size. Science in a dozen ways has 
brought us into closer relationships with European 
shores and peoples. Swift and mighty steamships, 
submarines, aeroplanes, wireless telegraphy — all 
assert that we can no longer claim for ourselves the 
isolation which was once our protection. In Wash- 
ington's and Adams' administrations the wisest 
statesmen rightly maintained that the quarrels of 
the Old World were nothing to us. We would not 
suffer ourselves to become involved in any of their 
"entanghng alHances." The later Monroe Doc- 
trine as vigorously asserted our right to work out our 
own destiny in the New World without interference 
at the hands of any European power. The change 
that our political conceptions have undergone since 
those days calls to mind the words of Lowell : 

"New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient 
good uncouth ; 
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep 
abreast of Truth," 



102 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

America and the international spirit. — Today, 
for good or ill, the very heart of the moral life of 
our republic is felt to beat in unison with the heart- 
beats of Europe. We now find that democracy 
can not be safe in America except as it is made safe 
for the world. With this belief, we necessarily con- 
ceive our problems as world problems. The neutral- 
ity once advocated as a political privilege and neces- 
sity, and the Monroe Doctrine, so long a powerful 
factor in our history, suddenly became outgrown. 
Our interests, our sympathies, our relationships are 
now world-wide, and no teacher can do for the moral 
life of her class in history in the future what ought 
to be done if she ignores these far-reaching facts. 

Questions and Suggestions 

1. Discuss: "No person is in a position to pass judg- 
ment upon the moral character of any act unless he 
understands thoroughly all of the conditions which sur- 
round the act." ^ 

2. Has your study of Ancient History convinced you 
that moral decay is a forerunner of the political downfall 
of a nation ? Illustrate. Show by the Spanish-American 
War and its outcome a conflict between two moral codes. 

3. What moral lessons should a class get from a study 
of the following : Columbus ; the settlement at Plymouth ; 
Roger Williams; William Penn ; John Smith; Peter 
Stuyvesant ; the Jesuits ? 

4. Indicate to what extent the moral qualities of the 
early settlers and colonists were fostered and developed 
by their surroundings. Explain why the French and 
Spanish in America failed to exhibit the same degree of 

ijudd, Psychology of High School Subjects, p. 378. 



MORALITY THROUGH HISTORY 103 

morality, if they did fail. Did the three nations send 
men to America with equally high aims ? Justify your 
opinion. 

5. Should grammar grade pupils be expected to form 
moral judgments concerning slavery, the liquor question, 
woman suffrage, child-labor laws, religious intolerance, 
etc. .? 

6. As you recall your early study of history, tell what 
effect was produced upon you by characters and incidents 
learned in the textbook and exhibiting industry; thrift; 
suffering ; cruelty ; tyranny ; love of country ; friend- 
ship ; betrayal of country; cowardice; bravery; pa- 
tience; reverence; cooperation; laziness; sympathy; 
hardihood. From your experience do you conclude that 
the study of history has much or Httle to commend it 
from the standpoint of its moral effects ? 

7. State and then comment upon the quotation from 
Froude; from Lecky. 

8. Who was Jacob Riis .? What contribution has he 
made to our history .? 

9. Who is Mary Antin .? Read her Promised Land. 
Tell how its reading affects your appreciation of America. 

10. What is chauvinism .? How does it differ from 
patriotism .? 

11. Who is Rabindranath Tagore .? Consult a good 
library (Poole's Index) for magazine articles that will tell 
of his criticism of American institutions and tendencies. 
His numerous books are worth knowing, too, though they 
do not bear upon this topic. 

12. Is there more or less morality involved in fighting 
for humanity than in fighting for one's country only .? 
Justify your answer. What is meant by the phrases, 
"citizen of the world," "international consciousness" ? 



104 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 



References for Further Reading 

Andrews, Charles M. : History as an Aid to Moral Culture, 

in Proceedings N. E. A. 1894, pp. 397-409. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo: Essays: History. Houghton 

Mifflin Co. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo : Representative Men : Uses of Great 

Men. Houghton Mifflin Co. 
Griggs, Edward Howard : Moral Education : History. B. W. 

Huebsch. 
Lecky, William E. H. : The Political Value of History. D. 

Appleton & Co. 



CHAPTER VIII 

MORALS THROUGH BIOGRAPHY 

Appeal of biography to children outgrowing myth 
and legend. — For children of tender years there 
are myths, legends, and fairy tales innumerable that 
are more powerful in teaching and impressing moral 
lessons than any other type of literature can be. 
In the kindergarten and the first one or two of 
the primary grades, e.g., it is a matter of perennial 
interest to see how real the incidents and characters 
from this type of literature seem, and how strong is 
the appeal they make. But as children grow older 
their interest in myth and legend diminishes with 
their developing rational powers, and in the grammar 
grades and high school they find increasing satis- 
faction in the lives and achievements of real men 
and women, whether drawn from history or con- 
temporary life. It is the duty of the home and 
school to supply children of this period with abundant 
biographical material, for in so doing their interests 
are enlisted and their ideals are fashioned. Both 
consciously and unconsciously the dominant ele- 
ments in the character of the men and women thus 
studied lay hold of the lives of young readers and 
become incorporated in them. In few other ways 
can young people be so fully and so " permanently 
kindled with productive enthusiasm for freedom and 

105 



I06 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

justice, and patriotism, and persistence, and honor 
and courage, and faith in the right." 

Influence of good men is dynamic. — Rules of 
conduct have their place. Precepts and proverbs 
are not without value. But it is when pupils come 
to know a character like Washington or Franklin 
habitually acting in accordance with self-imposed 
rules, that they feel constrained to follow them, too. 

Theoretical goodness is not attractive, but there is 
something dynamic in the influence of good men 
and women. Virtuous deeds have about them a 
degree of contagion and an infectious character 
that no amount of mere preaching can have. 

Avoid extreme censorship. — In this connection it 
is not out of place to say that biographies need not 
be censored to the point of making them bloodless, 
to be safe for children. The truthfulness of George 
Washington was perhaps one of his striking char- 
acteristics, but the cherry-tree story which we all 
learned in the nursery or a little later was perhaps 
a figment of imagination upon the part of some 
biographer who was more anxious to produce an 
effect than to tell the exact truth himself. No 
wonder a small boy, after hearing this story, asserted 
that he was better than Washington, because 
" George couldn't tell a lie, while he could but 
wouldn't " ! 

History of education learned through lives of its 
reformers. — The history of education can not be 
learned apart from the lives of the educational re- 
formers of the centuries. Normal schools and 
colleges of education see to it that their students 
get acquainted with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, 



MORALS THROUGH BIOGRAPHY 107 

Comenius, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Rousseau, Herbart, 
Horace Mann, Thomas Arnold, and others whose 
lives have been indissolubly Hnked with their 
teachings and reforms. 

The Bible made vital through its stories of great 
men and women. — The Bible as a guide in the 
moral and religious life would be powerless to pro- 
duce the desired effect if it were robbed of the stories 
of Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Isaiah, Elijah, 
Ehsha, David, Jesus, Peter, Paul, and others who 
embodied more or less fully in their daily living the 
principles of living they attempted to universalize. 
In the same way the lives of the saints, whether 
canonized or not, have always been regarded by the 
church as second only to the Bible as a medium for 
the teaching of religious truth that can lay hold of 
life and give it the religious color and trend. 

A lesson learned from a child. — But recently I 
learned from a Jewish boy of ten something of the 
influence that the life of a worthy man may exert 
upon a child. With his parents, who were able to 
speak but broken English, he rode for a day and 
night in a Pullman coach with his seat near ours. 
The long journey caused him to seek fellowship 
with us. It developed that he went to the pubKc 
school of his little home town, and that he had 
learned and remembered much about George Wash- 
ington, whom he admires greatly. But soon he 
mentioned Lincoln, and asserted his greater love 
for him, because, as he said, " Lincoln didn't have 
any school to go to, while Washington did, and yet 
Lincoln became a great and good man, and president 
of the United States, too." After some further 



Io8 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

comment upon the relative merits of these two heroes, 
his face brightened still more, his eyes sparkled 
anew, and with obvious pride in the further sur- 
prising news he had to tell, he added, " But say, 
have you heard about Columbus ? " Then he 
informed us about the daring of the great discoverer 
who sailed across the ocean when most other men 
feared to attempt such a thing, and when even 
his sailors tried to dissuade him from going on. 

I do not know that I had ever before appreciated 
so fully how real and how attractive these three 
characters — Columbus, Washington, and Lincoln 
— may be to a child. As I reflected upon the 
parental background of this child's life, and upon 
the stimulus that was coming to him from such 
lives brought to his attention in the public schools, 
I thought I understood why Horace Mann could 
call " the common school the hope of our country." 

Children are rightly taught that " honesty is the 
best policy," but there is in the life of Sir Walter 
Scott, e.g., one of the most powerful examples of 
this truth. Scott's whole life is one of singular 
interest and charm, but it may be doubted whether 
anything in it leaves a more wholesome influence 
with the young reader than his heroic resolve, when 
his publishing house failed and engulfed him with 
debt, to start anew and pay off" every dollar of 
obligation, though he might have taken advantage 
of a bankruptcy law and escaped the whole burden. 

Clara Barton and the Red Cross. — The great war 
into which we have at last been plunged " to make 
the world safe for democracy," has magnified for all 
of us the importance of the American Red Cross and 



MORALS THROUGH BIOGRAPHY 109 

its work. Where until a few months ago communi- 
ties gave nothing, or at most but a few dollars, to 
this organization, they are now giving thousands, and 
vying with one another in increasing their sub- 
scriptions. No better time was ever offered for 
acquainting the young with the life and inspiring 
example of its American founder, Clara Barton. 

Though a somewhat precocious girl, she long 
seemed destined to failure in life because of an 
excessive shyness and timidity in the presence of 
other people. Her high-school days were cut short 
because of this affliction, which rendered her tearful 
and speechless in class. At last somebody advised 
her to teach, beheving that with an increased 
responsibility she would throw aside her timidity and 
find herself in working for others. At sixteen she 
took charge of her first school. On the opening day, 
" too frightened to look her pupils in the face," she 
had to fasten her eyes upon her Bible and read aloud 
to her pupils until she gained composure. " She 
soon observed, however, that they respected and 
even stood in awe of her. That was a totally new 
experience — that any one should feel abashed 
before her. The timid girl's warm sympathy flowed 
out to those who were also timid ; and almost in 
a day her weakness had been transmuted into 
a teacher's most golden attributes — sympathetic 
understanding and kindness." Her success as a 
teacher and the quahties in her which made her 
success possible commend her to teachers today as 
one worthy of emulation. But illness after a few 
years compelled her to give up her school, and, as it 
proved, her profession. 



no MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Her next ambition was to defend the rights of 
inventors who were being fraudulently cheated out 
of these rights through scandals that were connected 
with the Patent Office in Washington. Securing 
an appointment as head clerk in this office, she set 
about reforming it. Naturally enough she met 
stout opposition, but within three years, in spite of 
the rudeness, disobedience, and slander that were 
used as weapons against her, she accomplished her 
task and thoroughly reformed the office. 

Her big opportunity to serve " her country and 
humanity " came early in the Civil War with the 
arrival in Washington of a trainload of wounded 
soldiers. Voluntarily undertaking the work of bind- 
ing up the wounds and relieving the pain of the suffer- 
ing men because nurses were few and the need was 
great, she quickly found herself and her mission, 
and, almost before she knew it, was a national figure, 
dispensing food, medicines, and bandages wherever 
in her judgment they were most needed. 

The rest of the story cannot be told here, but it 
should be available for boys and girls, for it illustrates 
so well the truthfulness of Miss Barton's own words : 
" I have no mission. I have never had a mission. 
But I have always had more work than I could do 
lying around my feet, and I try hard to get it out of 
the way so as to go on and do the next." 

Clara Barton's life was a life of service, and it is 
this fact which makes it of supreme worth today. 
The war is emphasizing anew the ideal of service. 
Perhaps this is to be one of the compensations for 
the loss to the world of treasures of art, millions of 
men, and billions of dollars. Men, women, and 



MORALS THROUGH BIOGRAPHY III 

children are called upon to serve, to do their bit, to 
enHst, to train, to produce, to conserve, for the 
common good. To shut one's eyes to suffering, to 
turn a deaf ear to calls for help, to hoard, to waste, 
to take one's ease in complacent selfishness, to get 
rich at the expense of the unfortunate, to be a 
slacker, was never so reprehensible as now. Hence 
it is that well-selected examples from the field of 
biography are needed today to reenforce by their 
example children's appreciation of this new need. 
Happily there have always been men and women 
who anticipated the present demand. When the 
call from without was less insistent, from their inner 
urge they taught us, and still teach us, how to work, 
how to use time, how to value knowledge, how to 
conserve, and how to serve. Always suggestive and 
always inspiring, their lives have more than ordinary 
value for boys and girls today. 

Luther Burbank. — Because the government is 
justly urging it as a patriotic duty for citizens who 
can to increase the food production of farm and 
garden everywhere, no better time could be found 
for making school children acquainted with that 
wizard of plant life, Luther Burbank. His achieve- 
ments of practical benefit to the race can be counted 
by the score. Part of the story is marvelous as a 
tale of the Arabian Nights, but there is a background 
of industry, experimentation, patience, and per- 
severance that gives moral significance to his life 
apart from its utility. It was a wise man who said 
that he who makes two blades of grass to grow where 
one grew before is a public benefactor. There are 
evidences to make us believe today that one who 



112 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

can teach us how to make two bushels of wheat or 
beans or potatoes grow where one grew before will 
prove to be one of the saviors of his country and of a 
great cause. The devotion and singleness of purpose 
of Burbank, if caught by children having access to 
farm and garden, will surely be of help in this crisis, 
and of no less value when the crisis has passed. 

Thomas A. Edison. — In planning for its defense 
and for the prosecution of the war, the government 
has been pleased to utilize the services of Thomas A. 
Edison. He speaks with an authority in certain 
lines unequaled by that of any other man of his 
age. But while Edison is a wizard he is not an 
accident. Present world-conditions and needs, and 
Edison's contribution today, make the time oppor- 
tune for teaching the story of his life. There are 
numerous elements in it, most of them not unlike 
those in Burbank's life, that contribute to the moral 
fiber of the child who gets acquainted with him. 

Handicaps. — Shakespeare makes the Duke say 
in As You Like It: 

"Sweet are the uses of adversity. 
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
Yet wears a precious jewel in his head." 

The libraries of biography are full of illustrations 
of this truth. Such books as Poor Boys Who Became 
Famous and Poor Girls Who Became Famous will 
always be read with pride and hopefulness by the 
children of the poor. One who grows up in a home 
of straitened circumstances, deprived of luxuries, 
used to work, and fearful that as a result he may 
miss the coveted prizes of life, takes courage when he 



MORALS THROUGH BIOGRAPHY 113 

sees how the world has finally recognized and honored 
rnen and women of worth, however humble their 
birth. Each new generation of children finds 
inspiration m the life of Lincoln and Garfield for 
this reason, and in scores of men and women who 
have overcome the obstacle, more fancied than real, 
of poverty and privation. 

Stories of this sort we have with us so much that 
It IS refreshing to read an occasional hfe of one who 
overcame the obstacle of being born rich, and either 
blessed the world with his wealth, or blessed it with 
his hands m spite of his wealth. Florence Nightin- 
gale belongs in the latter class. Her hfe should be 
made famihar to every girl of the grammar grades of 
our pubhc schools. Few lives can be found more 
fully and hterally embodying the ideal of service so 
much needed at this time. 

Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War. — 
The calhng of a nurse is so honorable and so highly 
esteemed in this age that it is surprising to learn 
that before Florence Nightingale's time " it was," 
as she says, " largely in the hands of the coarsest 
type of^women, not only untrained, but callous in 
feelmg,'' and often of low character. People believed 
" that it requires nothing but a disappointment in 
love, the want of an object, a general disgust or in- 
capacity for other things to turn a woman into a 
good nurse." How different the conception today! 
Thanks to this angel of the Crimean War, the best of 
women see in nursing an opportunity for social service 
which calls for scientific training, tact, patience, 
sympathy, and often administrative ability of a 
high order. Not only our hospitals, but our cities, 



114 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

our homes, our schools employ trained nurses in 
ever-growing numbers. Thus it really seems that 
she " has affected all modern history," as one of her 
biographers asserts. In spite of wealth and social 
prominence she humbled herself to serve and lent 
dignity to this valuable form of service. To her 
it was " God's work." Her estimate of its character 
may best be given in her own words : 

"Nursing is an art; and if it is to be made an art, 
requires as exclusive a devotion as any painter's or sculp- 
tor's work ; for what is the having to do with dead canvas 
or cold marble compared with having to do with the living 
body, the temple of God's spirit } Nursing is one of the 
fine arts; I had almost said the finest of the fine arts." 

Frances Willard and her influence. — Another 
one of the " uncrowned queens " peculiarly worthy 
of introduction to the youth of today is Frances 
Willard. Few statesmen, warriors, or others whom 
the world has pronounced great have been more 
influential than she in shaping a nation's thought and 
will. She opposed many forms of vice, but will be 
remembered by posterity for her lifelong crusade 
against intemperance. 

Today, when the nations of the earth are just 
rising to the level of her conception of the enormity 
of this evil, we may well wish to know the life history 
of this herald of a new day, this voice that cried in 
the wilderness so long before it seemed to make 
itself heard. 

The United States, nerving itself for the awful 
struggle in which it is engaged at present, realizes 
that it can not afford to weaken itself and jeopardize 



MORALS THROUGH BIOGRAPHY 115 

its chances for success by wasting its resources or its 
men through alcohol. Russia learned the same 
lesson two years earlier and banished vodka. But 
the lesson which the world is being taught by war, 
Frances Willard taught for a Hfetime in a time of 
peace. The nations are just catching her vision. 
Surely the principles which controlled her Kfe and 
enabled her to do her work for the purity of home Hfe, 
for the emancipation of women, and for the abolition 
of intemperance and its attendant evils are principles 
which will make an appeal to children who see them 
incarnate in her. 

Jacob Riis. — Jacob Riis, who taught Americans 
" How the Other Half Lives," is another of the 
Hves that should find a place in the elementary 
school. Colonel Roosevelt called him "America's 
most valued citizen." Whether we would all agree 
with that estirnate or not, few can read his books 
without being influenced to emulate his example in 
striving to do something to help the unfortunate and 
make the world a better place in which to live. 

Helen Keller, Booker Washington. — But it would 
take us beyond the limits of this chapter to do more 
than suggest the rich heritage in moral lessons and 
moral influence that must come to the child or older 
student who gets intimately acquainted with char- 
acters^ of the type already illustrated. Helen 
Keller's marvelous life, and her incredible achieve- 
ments in spite of the awful handicap of a lack of the 
sense of hearing and of sight, must give new courage 
and strength to every weak will which is tempted to 
give up a worthy object of desire because of the 
difficulties involved in achieving it. Booker Wash- 



Il6 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

ington's Up from Slavery has as many moral lessons 
for young white readers as his great school at Tuske- 
gee has had for the thousands of negro students 
who have learned there how to be better men and 
women while becoming better farmers, mechanics, 
or home-makers. 

Dr. GrenfeU. — Dr Grenfell's labors in Labrador 
as missionary, physician, nurse, and friendly coun- 
selor rank him as one of the finest representatives 
of the practical religion which Jesus practiced and 
taught. Let our students know him. Nothing 
need be said about either religion or morality to give 
training in both, while his acquaintance is being 
made. 

But examples need not be multiplied. All that 
might be given here would still be suggestive only. 
There is both an intellectual and a moral uplift 
for the more mature student in fellowship with such 
books as Emerson's Representative Men and Carlyle's 
Heroes and Hero Worship. Even younger students 
can profit by Plutarch's Lives. 

Sir Humphry Davy has been widely quoted as 
saying, when he was praised for his important dis- 
coveries, " My best discovery was Michael Faraday." 
In like manner it can be said that one of the best 
discoveries that any boy or girl can make is a man or 
woman of real worth ; one who by example has shown 
the world what the factors are which constitute true 
success and true greatness. Some time ago I heard 
a kindred truth expressed by a minister while 
preaching to his congregation. He was elaborating 
for purposes of emphasis the fact that the Bible 
as a book of truth and life is most influential when 



MORALS THROUGH BIOGRAPHY 117 

its teachings are embodied in the lives of men and 
women. In this connection he added, " The best 
Bible is not bound in sheep skin but in human skin." 
This, of course, was but a forceful way of saying 
that the virtues, moral and religious, enjoined upon 
us in the Bible as ideals of human conduct and 
principles of daily living are best understood and 
most potent in modifying character when found in- 
carnate in man. It is just this fact that makes the 
biographies of worthy men and women an important 
factor in the moral education of children, entitled, 
therefore, to a conspicuous place in the library of 
schools and homes, and a no less conspicuous place 
in courses of study for children in the grades. 

Questions and Suggestions 

1. Tell why you think the use of biography important 
in the education of children. 

2. Make a list of the biographies you think it im- 
portant for children to know rather intimately before 
reaching the high school. 

3. What virtues found in men and women, either in 
life or books, have been most effective in shaping your 
own life .? Did you take any character as your own ideal 
early in life ? 

4. What are the outstanding qualities in each of the 
following lives, as you understand them : Columbus, 
Washington, Lincoln, Grant, Lee, McKinley, Frances 
Willard, Mary Lyon, Clara Barton, Florence Nightingale, 
Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Jacob Riis, Cyrus 
Field, William Lloyd Garrison, Benjamin Franklin, 
Henry Ward Beecher, Cyrus McCormick, Daniel Boone .? 

5. Justify the teaching of the life of Aaron Burr; 



Ii8 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Benedict Arnold. What is the effect upon the normal 
eighth grade child of a reading of Hale's "The Man 
Without a Country"? 

6. Three books grammar grade children may well be 
asked to read are : Booker T. Washington's Up From 
Slavery; Helen Keller's The Story of My Life; and 
Franklin's Autobiography. 



References for Further Reading 

Bolton, Sarah K. : Famous Leaders Among Men. Thos. Y. 

Crowell Co. 
Bolton, Sarah K. : Famous Leaders Among Women. Thos. 

Y. Crowell Co, 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo : Representative Men. Houghton 

Mifflin Co. 
Keller, Helen : The Story of My Life. Doubleday, Page & 

Co. 
Marden, Orison Swett: Pushing to the Front. Thos. Y. 

Crowell Co. 
McTuRNAN, Lawrence : The Personal Equation. Atkinson, 

Mentzer & Grover Co. 
Plutarch's Lives. 
Washington, Booker T. : Up From Slavery. Doubleday, 

Page & Co. 



* CHAPTER IX 

MORAL TRAINING THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 

Moral qualities displayed by incidents and char- 
acters around us. — The short period given in most 
school programs to opening or general exercises 
presents an admirable opportunity to the teacher to 
teach effective moral lessons. Incidents and char- 
acters that have come under the teacher's personal 
observation, and those that have found a place in 
the newspapers and magazines of the day, are often 
embodiments of moral quaHties of the most dy- 
namic sort. Judiciously used in the schoolroom, 
their timeHness accentuates the force of their appeal. 
Too often we are blind to the heroic in life all about 
us, but for teachers to be on the alert to discover it, 
and, having discovered it, to acquaint their pupils 
with it, is one of the sure ways of approach to their 
moral natures. 

Discovery and use of the heroic around us. — 
It is good for a child to know the life of Aristides, 
whose most pronounced virtue was embalmed in 
the appellation, the Just; it is profitable to know 
Lincoln so intimately that one can feel the appro- 
priateness of the name. Honest Abe, so often appHed 
to him ; it is inspiring to read the story of Leonidas 
and his gallant band at the pass of Thermopylae; 
but children need not go so far away in time or 

119 



I20 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

space to find exhibitions of moral qualities and the 
heroic in life. They ought to be introduced to the 
heroes and heroines all about them, for they are to 
be found in every neighborhood, and there is scarcely 
an issue of a daily paper that does not chronicle 
some deed of service or sacrifice worthy of emulation. 
What makes life significant. — The late William 
James, in his essay, " What Makes Life Significant,'' 
says : 

"Wishing for heroism and the spectacle of human 
nature on the rack, I had never noticed the great fields 
of heroism lying round about me, I had failed to see it 
present and alive. I could only think of it as dead and 
embalmed, labelled and costumed, as it is in the pages of 
romance. And yet there it was before me in the daily 
lives of the laboring classes. Not in clanging fights and 
desperate marches only is heroism to be looked for, but 
on every railway bridge and fire-proof building that is 
going up today. On freight trains, on the decks of vessels, 
in cattle-yards and mines, on lumber-rafts, among the 
firemen and the policemen, the demand for courage is 
incessant; and the supply never fails. There, every day 
of the year somewhere, is human nature in extremis for 
you. And wherever a scythe, an ax, a pick, or a shovel 
is wielded, you have it sweating and aching and with its 
powers of patient endurance racked to the utmost under 
the length of hours of the strain. 

"As I awoke to all this unidealized heroic life around 
me, the scales seemed to fall from my eyes ; and a wave 
of sympathy greater than anything I had ever before 
felt with the common life of common men began to fill 
my soul. It began to seem as if virtue with horny hands 
and dirty skin were the only virtue genuine and vital 
enough to take account of. Every other virtue poses ; 
none is absolutely unconscious and simple, and unex- 



THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 1 21 

pectant of decoration or recognition, like this. These 
are our soldiers, thought I, these our sustainers, these 
the very parents of our life." ^ 

Heroes in unromantic walks. — Fanny E. Coe^ 
has compiled a reader for the upper grades telling 
the dramatic stories of eight such heroes of the 
unromantic walks of life. The diver, the telegraph 
operator, the civil engineer, the day laborer, the 
life-saver, the fireman, the engineer at sea, and the 
miner enter into the contents of this book. The 
incidents recorded are thrilling in each case; they 
are all illustrative of heroic deeds done from a sense 
of duty, v^ithout hope of renown, and without any 
of the stimulus and glamour by which soldiers are 
often incited to deeds of valor. But, more than 
that, they are suggestive of the type of moral quali- 
ties displayed by common men and women in every 
walk of hfe in almost every neighborhood. Nothing 
done upon the field of battle is more effective in 
teaching and impressing moral lessons than these 
incidents which come under the observation of 
teacher and pupils ahke, or at least within the range 
of their daily newspaper reading. They only need 
to be seized by the teacher and used at the psycho- 
logical moment to make permanent impressions for 
good in the lives of children. In fact such lessons 
command a degree of attention from children that 
lessons from books seldom receive. 

A lesson from the sinking of the Titanic. — The 
bravery and the chivalry of the men who went down 

^ Talks to Teachers and Students, p. 274 fF. 
^ Heroes of Everyday Life. 



122 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

with the Tita7iic is an instance in point. " Women 
and children first " was their motto. It even over- 
came the instinct for self-preservation, so that they 
deliberately stood back and waited their doom with 
the sinking vessel, while the women and children 
were given a place in the small boats and at least 
one more opportunity for rescue from immediate 
death. — That the mind grows by what it feeds 
upon, is a truism ; and if the quality of mind and 
heart exhibited by the men who voluntarily went 
down with the Titanic is one that should be fos- 
tered in men generally, such incidents deserve to 
be brought to the attention of children in home and 
school as well. 

Common illustrations. — Of a less striking sort, 
but no less worthy of imitation, are the instances of 
honor and integrity to be found in the financial deal- 
ings of men at times when there is opportunity for 
dishonor and dishonesty without discovery. The 
family of Mr. A. buys groceries of Mr. B. and has 
them charged day after day. At the end of the 
month the grocer sends his statement and Mr. A. 
pays the bill and takes a receipt for the same, show- 
ing that the bill was paid in full. On going home 
and looking over the cost of the several items in- 
cluded in the statement he discovers that the grocer 
made a trifling mistake in addition and thus cheated 
himself out of a dollar. What is Mr. A.'s duty under 
these circumstances ^ Is he under a moral obliga- 
tion to go to the grocer and pay him another dollar .^ 
Some men would not do so. Would the pupil do 
so ? Can members of the class cite instances in 
which children or adults have done so ? As a matter 



THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 123 

of fact, at least three out of four men would prob- 
ably take the initiative in correcting such an error 
under similar circumstances. A brief discussion of 
the matter and of the results likely to follow from 
either course of action will surely be profitable. 

Some boys and some men think it permissible to 
ride on a street car or on a train and not pay the 
regulation fare or give up their ticket if the conduc- 
tor does not happen to call for it. Are there others 
who would voluntarily hunt up the conductor and 
pay for their ride under such conditions ? Is there 
a moral obligation in the case .? If so, what is it .? 

These are days when an education is generally 
highly esteemed. In the neighborhood is a girl 
who is ambitious for a high-school and college edu- 
cation. There are younger brothers and sisters and 
an invalid mother in the home. That the younger 
brothers and sisters may get the best education pos- 
sible the oldest stays at home and denies herself the 
satisfaction which her ambition calls for. Can you 
find such an example of sacrifice .? A brief reference 
to an actual example of it, and a brief discussion of 
the merits of the case will teach a needed lesson. 

Courtship and marriage are natural and honorable 
in most lives at the appropriate age. Is there a 
young woman of your acquaintance denying her- 
self the pleasure of this estate that she may devote 
herself to a widowed mother who needs her .? Is the 
sacrifice a necessary one ^ Is it commendable ? Is 
it a rare example of unselfishness .? Is it a worth- 
while topic to consider in school .? 

While it seems to me that children will usually find 
it most helpful to consider the examples of virtuous 



124 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

lives, occasionally the teacher has an opportunity 
to present examples of an opposite sort with excel- 
lent results. In a certain community there was a 
mysterious fire recently in the basement of a house 
in which a man had stored his household goods after 
having them rather heavily insured. The finger of 
suspicion pointed towards the owner, but he pro- 
tested his innocence. It was months before the 
net closed round him to such an extent that there 
was nothing left for him to do except to confess to 
the crime of arson and throw himself on the mercy 
of the court. The whole affair was such as to lend 
itself to the teaching of a most impressive lesson in 
the schoolroom of that neighborhood, and the 
teachers who used it for that purpose were doing 
their obvious duty. 

A lesson from cases of arson and bigamy. — In 
the same city a prominent man was arrested for big- 
amy. He spent months in jail before his trial, at 
which his guilt was clearly established and he was 
sentenced to spend an indefinite period in the peni- 
tentiary. This incident, too, was one which some 
teachers used with good effect. Not only the 
meaning of arson and bigamy, but the legal conse- 
quences of these crimes was presented to pupils in 
such a way as to make them appear in their proper 
light as immoral and socially reprehensible acts. 

Some children are so well fortified in their morality 
before reaching the high-school age that they can 
appreciate the words of Milton in " Comus," in 
which he says : 

"He that has light in his own clear breast 
May sit i' the center, and enjoy bright day : 



THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 1 25 

But he that hides a foul soul and dark thoughts, 
Benighted walks under the midday sun ; 
Himself is his own dungeon." 

Most children, however, find an added incentive 
for virtuous conduct in having brought to their at- 
tention from time to time the truth of the Scriptures 
that " the way of the transgressor is hard." When 
concrete instances of this truth are presented, and 
when they are permitted to see Nemesis overtake 
the evildoer under their very eyes, they have the 
sort of deterrent they need to keep them from be- 
lieving that moral precepts are well enough to preach 
but really have but little relation to life outside of 
the sermons of parents and preachers. The press 
of the country is filled with accounts of accidents, 
murders, suicides, arrests, trials, court sentences, 
and other more or less sensational news. Too much 
of this sort of thing is not good for youthful readers ; 
but the teacher and the parent may turn some of 
it to good account by taking pains to emphasize 
the relation that exists between these tragic results 
and the breaking of civil and moral laws that pre- 
ceded them. 

A man is half crazed by drink. In this condition 
he takes the life of an innocent friend, or of his own 
wife or child. A bank cashier begins to indulge in 
unwarranted and extravagant habits, to appropriate 
moneys that do not belong to him, to make false 
entries in his books and hide his deception for a 
time ; but the day of exposure always comes sooner 
or later, and with it dismissal, dishonor, a prison 
sentence, and a blasted life. Such newspaper items 



126 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

can be used to make vice appear in its proper light, 
and to give children a heightened appreciation of 
the social and personal values of virtue and right 
conduct. They need to see that there is a World 
Order ; that there is such a thing as retribution ; 
that " whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also 
reap '' ; that moral laws, like physical and natural 
laws, cannot be broken with impunity. 

Opportunities for the expressive side of morality. 
— Again, children grow in certain moral lines 
through the expression of their moral instincts and 
impulses. For this reason, when the newspapers 
are filled with accounts of great suffering, want, 
and destitution in any part of the world which needs 
quick relief, pupils in our public schools need the 
sort of training that can best come through express- 
ing some portion of their sympathy in tangible form. 
To take up a collection in school for the San Fran- 
cisco earthquake sufferers, the needy Belgians, the 
starving Armenians, or the famine-stricken peoples 
of India, is to grow in charity and to develop the 
spirit of philanthropy and humanitarianism. For 
the children of a school to fill baskets Thanksgiving 
Day or Christmas for worthy but needy families 
of the neighborhood, or for the Salvation Army or 
Associated Charities to distribute among such fami- 
lies, is a most commendable practice. Not the least 
of its benefits come to those who give, for children 
must learn to give, and they learn it best by giving. 
It is a misfortune, indeed, for a child to grow into 
manhood or womanhood without experiencing the 
satisfaction that comes from sharing with another's 
need, and without frequent exercise of the altruistic 



THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 127 

impulse that needs to become established as a habit, 
to make him fit well into twentieth century institu- 
tional life. Our churches, hospitals, benevolences, 
reform work, and many of our schools are absolutely 
dependent upon the gifts of individuals who could 
easily withhold them all, as some people do, on the 
ground that they are not able to give. The truth 
of it is that we have already entered upon an era in 
which it is becoming almost as disgraceful for all 
but indigents and paupers to refuse their just share 
of support to the social agencies for betterment of 
community life as it is for a very rich man to hve 
and die without leaving a rich legacy to some insti- 
tution able and willing to use it for the amelioration 
of social conditions. It is the privilege of teachers 
to teach and train the children of this generation so 
that there will be fewer men and women in the next 
without this viewpoint, and fewer without the dis- 
position to carry their full share of the social load. 
The opportune time for some of the most effective 
lessons to this end is when people outside of school 
are responding to an urgent call for help somewhere 
and the papers are treating it as an important news 
item. 

Pestalozzi's method of developing sympathy. — 
Pestalozzi apphed this principle in a very practical 
way in his work. "When he was at Stanz," says 
Quick, " news arrived of the destruction of Alt- 
dorf. Pestalozzi depicted to his scholars the misery 
of the children there. ' Hundreds,' said he, ' are 
at this moment wandering about as you were last 
year, without a home, perhaps without food or 
clothing.' He then asked them if they would not 



128 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

wish to receive some of these children among them ? 
This, of course, they were eager to do. Pestalozzi 
then pointed out the sacrifices it would involve on 
their part, that they would have to share everything 
with the newcomers, and to eat less and work more 
than before. Only when they promised to make 
these sacrifices ungrudgingly he undertook to apply 
to the Government that the children's wish might 
be granted." 

A philanthropist quoted. — George W. Childs, 
one-time owner of the Philadelphia Public Ledger 
and a millionaire philanthropist who began his 
career as errand boy in a bookstore in Baltimore, 
enjoyed using his property to benefit his fellow men. 
" Giving was a calling with him," it is said. The 
following comment of his is therefore especially 
significant : " I beheve that children should be 
educated to give away with judgment their little 
all ; to share their possessions with their friends. 
If they are trained in this spirit, it will always be 
easy for them to be generous; if they are not, it 
will be more natural for them in the course of time 
to be mean, and meanness can grow upon a man 
until it saps his soul." 

A seventh-grade class and efficiency. — One of the 
best series of lessons in a phase of moral training 
that has ever come under the writer's observation 
was made to center round the idea efficiency. It was 
in a class of seventh-grade children at a time when 
men and magazines were still having much to say 
upon this subject. After some informal study of 
the meaning of the word as directed by the teacher, 
herself a good embodiment of the ideas as applied 



^ THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 129 

to teaching, the pupils were directed to write to a 
number of business and professional men for their 
opinion of the efficient man in relation to their re- 
spective callings. The replies of these men were 
read and discussed in class. The fact that the men 
were prominent in the community and that the pupils 
knew many of them, intensified their interest in the 
subject. Few children could, by other means, have 
seen the relation of efficiency to fidelity, industry, 
enthusiasm, care, thoroughness, and a number of 
other virtues, as this class seemed to see it. The 
point we are making is that the current interest in 
the theme outside of school and the introduction of 
the views of non-school men gave a reality to the 
study that will make it " carry over " into life, and 
really shape conduct as well as ideas. Such, of 
course, is the ultimate goal of all moral instruction. 
The observance of special days, such as Labor 
Day, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Lincoln's Birth- 
day, Washington's Birthday — all offer additional 
opportunities for emphasizing certain lessons that 
can not be taught so effectively at other times. 
For example, when the whole country is celebrating 
Labor Day, with every line of business suspended for 
a day, and with parades, speeches, and newspapers 
all emphasizing a common theme, the teacher can 
not do better than give some time to the subject. 
She can do much to impress upon her pupils the dig- 
nity of labor, the absolute dependence of society 
upon the workingman, the importance of various 
branches of labor locally considered, the advantages 
that have come to the laboring man from organiza- 
tion into labor unions, the necessity of preserving 



130 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

mutually just relations between employers and em- 
ployees, between capital and labor. 

Special lessons taught best upon special days. — 
The occasion of a local strike, or of one that threatens 
the comfort and welfare of the whole country as 
did the recent proposed strike of locomotive en- 
gineers, makes it possible to impress upon children 
the social and industrial relationships and the far- 
reaching effects of any disturbance of these relation- 
ships among peoples and communities, however 
widely separated. Whatever the extent of the griev- 
ance or the justice of the demands which lead to a 
strike, innocent people are made to suffer by it, and 
teachers ought to show it. 

The subject is one which calls for much tact and 
discretion and a dispassionate, unprejudiced treat- 
ment at the hands of a teacher, but it can be made 
productive of much good if she gives her pupils 
even a rudimentary sense of the moral values in- 
volved. Pupils in the upper grammar grades are 
certainly as capable of passing moral judgments 
upon such matters of immediate concern to them- 
selves, their families, and their neighbors, as upon 
the merits of the controversy between the Colonies 
and Great Britain leading to the Revolutionary War, 
or the causes which rent the Union and precipitated 
the Civil War. 

Objections answered. — Teachers who deal with 
such current topics will occasionally hear the ob- 
jection made that it is their business to teach the 
common branches better, and that if they do this 
well enough they will have no time, nor is it their 
business, to do the other things. Similar objections 



THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 13I 

are made to the minister who tries to socialize the 
gospel message and relate it to reform movements 
of local interest. Such criticism need not deter 
either teachers or ministers. Indeed, there is an 
opposite type of criticism of the public schools to 
the effect that their work takes too little account 
of the men and movements of the day; that they 
are too little related to the hfe that is being lived 
outside of the schools ; that life situations must be 
more freely introduced into the classrooni, and 
schoolroom classes must be permitted to participate 
in a larger way in the institutional life of the present 
to make their work real, vital, and effective in the 
education of children. It is to this criticism that 
we shall need to give a more willing ear. 

Teach children to read the daily papers. — Finally, 
it seems in place to suggest here that children should 
be taught to read the daily papers while they are 
still in the elementary schools. The habit is worth 
fixing. They should be taught, too, how to read 
them without wasting time. Many schools have 
" current events " as a part of the history course in 
the eighth grade. In such schools it is common to 
base the work upon the weekly appearance of a 
little current-events magazine of nominal cost. 
This is good but ought to be freely supplemented 
with appropriate and timely contributions from daily 
papers and more pretentious magazines. An in- 
quiry into the reading habits of your pupils, whether 
in grades or high school, will probably surprise you 
with the large number who do not regularly read 
either daily papers or magazines. College classes 
often have no better knowledge of what is going on 



1132 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

in the world, that is of significance in politics, states- 
manship, philanthropy, education, missionary en- 
deavor, industry, and social reforms. Surely the 
moral ideas, ideals, attitudes, and habits that are 
developed in connection with contemporary prob- 
lems discussed in these fields are among the most 
potent with which the schools can concern them- 
selves. 

Questions and Suggestions 

1. The problem in the schoolroom is that of making 
virtuous conduct attractive, and vicious conduct equally 
repellent to children. Current events furnish one of these 
opportunities. Make note of the newspaper items which 
fall under these two captions, and introduce them into 
the "general exercise" period from time to time. En- 
courage appropriate comment from children themselves. 
Lead them to condemn that which deserves condemna- 
tion, and to commend conduct that deserves to be com- 
mended and emulated. 

2. Make clear to children the relation between dis- 
honesty, deception, petty thefts, and unfair practices in 
school and home, and the more notorious cases of robbery, 
embezzlement, and fraud reported in the press from time 
to time. 

3. Find occasion to commend bravery, daring, and 
courage exhibited in common walks of life, and to Hnk 
them with the similar qualities displayed by the soldier 
in military service. 

4. Encourage the expression of the spirit of sacrifice 
and service appropriate and possible to children when 
adults are finding the occasion for similar expression. 

5. Find examples of men In public life who dare to do 
their duty as they see it, in spite of criticism that is often 



THROUGH CURRENT EVENTS 133 

merciless. Have children think of the moral courage 
required of one who has his motives as well as his judg- 
ment assailed while he renders valuable pubHc service. 
The governor of a state, mayor of a city, members of a 
board of education, or the president of the United States 
may afford an excellent illustration of this point at times. 

6. Use current events to reenforce your teaching of the 
sacred and binding character of one's word — contracts 
between individuals, agreements between employers and 
labor unions, treaties between nations. "His word is as 
good as his bond." Show what makes such comment 
possible. 

7. What moral qualities does Centennial year in 
Illinois offer an especial opportunity to cultivate ? Why .? 
Illustrate with Lincoln, Grant, the Jesuits, pioneer 
history, old settlers. 

References for Further Reading 

CoE, Fanny E. : Heroes of Everyday Life. Ginn & Co. 
James, William: Talks to Teachers and Students: What 

Makes Life Significant. Henry Holt & Co. 
Newspapers and magazines abound in material of worth. 



CHAPTER X 

THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC 

*' Therefore the poet 
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods ; 
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage. 
But music for the time doth change his nature. 
The man that hath no music in himself, 
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; 
The motions of his spirit are dull as night. 
And his affections dark as Erebus : 
Let no such man be trusted." 

Shakespeare. 

The social values of music. — Though music is 
alrnost universally taught in the elementary schools, 
it is still regarded by many patrons and not a few- 
teachers as a fad or frill, a superfluous excrescence 
upon the course of study, that could be given up 
without serious loss, a feature that need not be taken 
very seriously by teachers or pupils. This concep- 
tion is, of course, born of a failure to analyze its 
merits, and of ignorance of its real educative pos- 
sibilities. The truth is that there are few subjects 
in the ordinary curriculum that may be made to 
contribute more largely to the social and moral 
training of school children. It is one of the subjects 
which, when well taught, " carries over " and func- 
tions in their daily life out of and beyond school. 

134 



THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC 135 

In the home, in church and Sunday school, in the 
social circle, in lodge, in the theater, in pubHc 
gatherings of almost every sort, music has an im- 
portant role. Even if one be not expected to pro- 
duce it, his enjoyment is greater if, when he meets 
his friends in any of these relationships, he is able 
to appreciate the music that is offered for his enter- 
tainment. 

Music the language of the emotions. — Music 
IS the language of the emotions. It is born of emo- 
tion and It is to the emotions that it makes its dis- 
tinct appeal. It has this in common with the other 
so-called fine arts — architecture, sculpture, paint- 
ing, and poetry. There are instincts within the 
normal human breast which are satisfied by rhythm, 
melody,^ and harmony, by a *' concordance of sweet 
sounds." Its niission is to give pleasure. Stripped 
of the ideas which may accompany it, and divested 
of the action to which it may be Hnked, it is perhaps 
unmoral, neither moral nor immoral in its effects. 
This is certainly true except in so far as pleasure 
itself is a wholesome relaxation following the ten- 
sion and stress of most of the serious activities of 
life. Viewed in this light, music must be acknowl- 
edged as a beneficent balm which soothes tired nerves 
and enables one to gird up his loins and take up 
again the struggle in the battle of life. 

Music begets sympathy and understanding. — 
But referring once more to the fact that music is the 
language of the emotions, we find here its first great 
moral aspect. It is universal. It binds us to- 
gether. It transcends nationahties and creeds. It 
breaks down the barriers of spoken language. We 



136 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

can not have intellectual intercourse with men and 
women speaking an unknown tongue. We must 
learn the Frenchman's language or he must learn 
ours. We cannot read Ibsen, but Grieg's Peer 
Gynt belongs to us as to the rest of the world. The 
melodies and harmonies of the musical masters are 
the language of the international soul. The for- 
eigner's newspaper is an enigma. It has no message 
for us. But his music strikes a responsive chord in 
our hearts, and we are one with him, while we listen 
at least, regardless of the language of his intellect. 

Not only do people of different nationalities find 
in music a common vehicle for the expression of 
their feehngs, but this, in turn, serves to awaken an 
interest in other phases of their mutual life. Sym- 
pathy and understanding tend to take the place 
of the jealousies, ignorance, and intolerance that 
may otherwise prevail. 

The writer listened recently to a great symphony 
orchestra. The musicians comprising it represent 
five different nations, all of them at war, on oppos- 
ing sides. But whatever their national differences 
these men have at least one thing in common — a 
great passion for music. This is their common bond, 
and it is strong enough to enable them to live and 
travel together week after week in relations of 
amity, respect, and mutual admiration. When this 
great orchestra, facing an audience of fifteen hundred 
American citizens, stands and plays the " Star 
Spangled Banner," there is no room in any hearer's 
heart for hatred of any one. The brotherhood of 
man is a realized ideal, for a little while at least. 

The writer has heard a teacher say of a group of 



THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC 137 

Welsh children in her room : " I could not have 
cared for them as I did if I had not heard them sing. 
But they were just Kke their fathers who worked in 
the tin-plate factory. These men in their over- 
alls would gather at night in chorus or choir and 
sing like angels — I just loved them." 

The writer can no more listen to the music of 
Tschaikowsky without feeling an interest in the 
Russian people than he can read Sienkiewicz with- 
out finding that Poles and Enghsh after all have 
some common bonds. Music is thus the gateway 
through which peoples of different lands enter into 
still further communion with each other. 

When the great World War is over, there can be 
no doubt that one of the biggest factors that will 
help to smother the fires of race and national hatred 
kindled by it will be the music and musicians of the 
contending nations. 

Narrowing the field of music, and thinking in 
terms of elementary school children, we still find 
the songs of the school their great unifying agent; 
Pupils come in from their several homes with self- 
centered thoughts and interests. A few minutes 
spent in singing in an opening exercise unifies them 
all. It begets a common emotional atmosphere 
that works wonders in a short time. It makes co- 
operative tasks a possibility. It paves the way for 
the right sort of teamwork between the teacher 
and the class. Indeed, at almost any time of day 
when children are seen to be growing nervous and 
restless, when the unity of the school seems to be 
going to pieces, when individualism is becoming 
marked, the wise grade teacher can use a song to 



138 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

pour oil on troubled waters, and do infinitely more 
with it to restore order and unity than she can do 
with any amount of scolding or fretting or pun- 
ishing. 

Music and discipline. — The writer has in mind 
a successful teacher of music who used to use her 
piano to restore amity and to suppress hostile 
demonstrations exhibited by her own and her neigh- 
bor's children. Incipient quarrels and fights can- 
not flourish with a proper musical accompaniment. 
Music does have power to quell the savage that 
rises at times in the bosoms of children even of our 
best homes. 

Music and patriotism. — The relation of music 
to patriotism and to religious worship must be 
evident to every one. The martial music of fife 
and drum or the stirring marches of a military band 
quicken the pulse and step of Grand Army veterans 
today, even though it has been more than fifty years 
since the Civil War closed. Soldiers the world over 
and for generations have been able to subdue fear, 
muster courage, and resolutely face the charge of 
the enemy and death itself through the inspiring 
influence of music. More battles have been won by 
bands than bullets, if the truth were fully stated. 
He must be a dull clod who can not respond with 
a finer patriotic feeling when " America " or the 
"Star Spangled Banner" is sung today than he 
has at other times. Without questioning their 
loyalty to the Union, it is certain that the people 
of the South never hear " Dixie " without respond- 
ing to it with a feeling of local pride whose intensity 
is due to the song itself. " God Save the King," 



THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC 1 39 

" The Marseillaise," and the " Watch on the Rhine " 
have a corresponding influence upon the peoples of 
Great Britain, France, and Germany, respectively. 
The psychological explanation of the efi^ect of national 
airs and patriotic hymns is not easy to state. We 
do not pretend to know whether it is wholly or 
partly inherent in the music, or whether an associ- 
ation of ideas that have gradually clustered them- 
selves about this sort of music is the secret. But 
the fact remains that patriotism which expresses 
itself in both thought and action is intimately 
related to music, and is in large measure dependent 
upon it. 

Music and worship. — As for religious worship, it 
is almost unthinkable apart from music. Our lead- 
ing Christian churches today give a much bigger 
place in their Sunday morning services to the music 
of the organist, choir, and congregation than to the 
scriptural reading, prayer, and sermon of the preacher. 
The psychological justification for such a distribu- 
tion must be sought, we may conclude, in the 
relative moral and religious effects of these two 
phases of the service. 

Historically, the praise of the Lord has involved 
music since the days of David, and long before 
him. The Psalms were written to sing. Their 
metrical arrangement is one of their chief charms. 
And over and over again in the Psalms do we find 
such admonitions as these : 

"Give thanks unto Jehovah with the harp : 
Sing praises unto him with the psaltery often strings. 
Sing unto him a new song : 
Play skillfally with a loud noise." 



I40 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

It was true of old, and is no less true today, that 
the soul was Hfted up in songs of praise. Happiness, 
thanksgiving, adoration find their natural expression 
in song ; and hymns of praise tend as surely to be- 
get in those who listen, and more, perhaps, in those 
who sing them, an emotional and a devotional 
spirit appropriate to them. 

In the great oratorios and sacred cantatas are 
illustrations of music which quickens religious un- 
derstanding and chastens the spirit as nothing else 
can do. One who has heard it can never escape the 
gracious influence of Mendelssohn's treatment of 
the 42d Psalm, 

"As the hart pants after the water brooks, 
So panteth my soul after thee, O God.'' 

The effect of great oratorios. — Among the richest 
spiritual experiences the writer has ever had were 
those coming from his small part in helping to sing 
such masterpieces as GauFs Holy City, Rossini's 
Stahat Mater, Mendelssohn's Elijah and St. Paul, 
and Handel's Messiah. No sermon, no picture 
drawn from Revelation, no product of anybody's 
imagination, has been able to make Heaven so al- 
luring as an eternal abiding place as it was made by 
the *' Hallelujah Chorus " from the Messiah. There 
are few things that have come into my life from which 
I would part vv^ith more reluctance than that heritage. 
But the gratifying thought in this connection is 
that most children who embrace the musical oppor- 
tunities offered them through the grades and high 
school of an ordinary school system today may be 



THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC 141 

equipped for participation, under proper leadership, 
in the singing of just such music. 

The function of the phonograph. — In communities 
unable to render musical masterpieces of such mag- 
nitude and worth, it is still possible for children to 
become acquainted with them and to profit by them. 
The alrnost universal use of the phonograph brings 
them within easy reach of every child. There is no 
longer any excuse for denying them to public school 
children. In rural schools in which one teacher must 
teach everything that is taught, music almost uni- 
versally suffers either from lack of time or lack of 
ability on the part of the teacher. Here it is es- 
pecially advisable to introduce the phonograph and 
some carefully selected records that will acquaint 
the pupils with the worth-while music of both sacred 
and secular Hnes. 

Music in penal institutions. — The place given to 
music in reform schools and penal institutions ought 
to be suggestive to public school officials. If it is a 
powerful factor in the reformation of character, 
can it be less useful in its formation ? If our hos- 
pitals for the insane find its tendency in the direc- 
tion of docility, morality, and reason, may it not be 
equally efficacious for perfectly normal children .? 

The student of history may recall that George 
III of England, in his fits of melancholy madness, 
was deeply " sensible of the power of music to create 
an atmosphere of peace, and restore something hke 
harmony to the sweet bells of the spirit, jangled out 
of tune." 

In I Samuel 16 : 23 it is written that : " When the 
evil spirit from God was upon Saul, then David 



142 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

took an harp, and played with his hand. So Saul 
was refreshed and was well, and the evil spirit de- 
parted from him." 

If great sanitariums find it has curative effects 
upon the sick, may it not be a salutary means of 
preventing ills ? 

Danger of intellectualizing music too much. — 
But even where music has a large place in the ele- 
mentary schools, there is some danger of attempting 
to intellectualize it too much. It has an interesting 
science that has a place in the training of some 
children, but music as an art must come first. There 
ought to be much more rote singing than note sing- 
ing in the lower grades. The aim should be to lead 
children to love good music, to want to hear it, to 
desire a part in it. This can no more result from 
analysis and dissection of it than a love for literature 
can be developed by such a process. " Music should 
be taught in the schools for the purpose of develop- 
ing good cheer, to inspire with beautiful sentiments, 
to uplift, and to harmonize the soul." ^ Simple 
folk-songs, pretty ballads, the melodies that were 
sung by our fathers and mothers, the songs that 
touch responsive chords in every heart — these are 
the type that deserves a large place in the elementary 
school. 

The schools have it in their power to develop such 
a taste for good music that the cheap and shoddy 
ragtime which masquerades under the name of 
music will fall into disuse. Surely there is no place 
in school for records of this sort. Fewer of them 
will be purchased for the home as the taste for good 

^ Bolton, Principles of Education, p. 647. 



THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC 143 

music is elevated in the school. Church music has 
already been contaminated by the cheaper modern 
perversions of it to such an extent that one great 
and influential weekly magazine has recently sounded 
an editorial warning against " religious ragtime." 
Of course the antidote for ragtime in church or home 
must come through education. Children who de- 
velop a taste for the worthwhile in music can not 
be permanently satisfied by ragtime. 

Plato upon the place of music. — Teachers and 
parents would find it profitable to become famiHar 
with so ancient an authority as Plato upon the 
place of music in the moral and aesthetic education 
of children. In his Republic, Book III, occurs this 
very pertinent paragraph. It would be difficult for 
a doctor of music or a professor of ethics to state 
the truth more helpfully : 

"We would not have our guardians grow up amid 
images of moral deformity, as in some noxious pasture, 
and there browse and feed upon many a baneful herb 
and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently 
gather a festering mass of corruption in their own soul. 
Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern 
the true nature of beauty and grace ; then will our youth 
dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds; 
and beauty, the effluence of fair works, will meet the 
sense like a breeze, and insensibly draw the soul even in 
childhood into harmony with the beauty of reason. . . . 

"Is not this, I said, the reason, Glaucon, why musical 
training is so powerful, because rhythm and harmony 
find their way into the secret places of the soul, on which 
they mightily fasten, bearing grace in their movements, 
and making the soul graceful of him who is rightly edu- 
cated, or ungraceful if ill-educated ; and also because he 



144 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

who has received this true education of the inner being 
will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art 
and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and 
rejoices over, and receives into his soul the good, and 
becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate 
the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is 
able to know the reason of the thing; and when reason 
comes he will recognize and salute her as a friend with 
whom his education has made him long familiar. 

"Yes, he said, I quite agree with you in thinking that 
these are the reasons why there should be a musical 
education." 

The psychologist's attitude. — Because music plays 
upon the emotions which may be exercised apart 
from action, it has been objected that it has a 
weakening and enervating effect upon character. 
The psychologist would readily admit that this is 
true when an emotion is roused which has for its 
object the performance of a duty. For example, 
if we listen with excitement to the details of the suf- 
fering we are called upon to alleviate and then do 
nothing about it, we are weaker than before. We'd 
better never hear the call for help from the Red 
Cross society than to hear it, feel the promptings of 
our best impulses to lend our aid, and then do noth- 
ing about it. But to be affected by a drama, a novel, 
a poem, or a song which points to no immediate 
duty of action, it has been well said, need not ener- 
vate us. " We may be the better for it ; we may be 
the more likely to act rightly when the opportunity 
comes, for having felt rightly when there was no 
immediate call for action. A man is better for his 
formless aspirations after good." 



THE MINISTRY OF MUSIC 145 

Music certainly helps one to get upon the Mount 
of Transfiguration. Reaching such a height was not 
condemned by the Great Teacher, but it was rather 
the suggestion of one that we build our tabernacles 
and dwell there. The path of duty takes us down 
into the commonplace valley where men dwell. 
But life in the valley is richer and more significant 
to those about us when our natures are refined, our 
passions subdued, our thoughts made tender, our 
souls purged through the redemptive agency of 
good music. Let us have more of it in the public 
schools, recognizing that it is not a frill, not for the 
aesthete only, and not to make musicians, pri- 
marily, but to develop musical appreciation and to 
enrich character and life. 



Questions and Suggestions 

1. Can you name any class of people whose ability 
either to give or to receive pleasure would not be increased 
by music .? Indicate its place in the home, the church, 
the Sunday school, the lodge, the social circle, elsewhere. 

2. Enumerate the so-called fine arts, and show in what 
respect music resembles the others. 

3. Explain the meaning of this sentence: "Music is 
the language of the international soul." Give illustra- 
tions of its truth. 

4. Account for the presence of military bands in the 
armies of the world. What relation between music and 
morality is suggested by the place given to music in the 
army Y. M. C. A. huts today ? 

5. Does good music in a church touch the moral and 
religious nature of the congregation, or merely contribute 
to its aesthetic pleasure .? Justify your answer. 



146 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

6. Why is music given a place in hospitals, asylums 
for the insane, reformatories, and penitentiaries ? What 
suggestion is derived from this for schools ? 

7. Discuss the quotation from Plato's Republic. Did 
the term music mean to Plato just what we mean by it 
today ? 

8. Under what conditions may music have a detri- 
mental effect upon character ? 

9. It is well known that certain great musicians have 
had loose morals. Show that this is not to be used as an 
argument against the moral influence of music. 

10. What is the psychological basis for music P 

11. Why does vocal music have so much larger a place 
than instrumental music in the public schools .? 

12. When you hear a boy or girl whistle or sing at his 
work, what do you think of his disposition or temporary 
mental state .? 



References for Further Reading 

Cole, Lucy K. : Music and the Social Problem, in Proceedings 
N. E. A. 1 91 3, pp. 604-609. 

Haweis, Hugh Reginald : Music and Morals. Harpers. 

Mason, Daniel Gregory : Music as an International Lan- 
guage, in International Conciliation Pamphlet, June, 1913. 

Reynolds, Alice Louise : Music that Pays Dividends, in Pro- 
ceedings N. E. A. 1913, pp. 609-612. 

Van Dyke, Henry: The Music Lover. Moffat, Yard & Co. 

WiNSHiP, A. E. : Music and Ethics, in Proceedings N. E. A. 
1913, pp. 602-604. 



CHAPTER XI 
ART EDUCATION AND MORALITY 

Public school teachers are only beginning to 
recognize the big part which art in its broad sense 
has to play in the education of children. Perhaps 
few even yet see very distinctly that it may be a 
factor in the moral training of boys and girls, but 
its use to this end is easily demonstrable, though 
its teaching is to be justified upon other grounds 
more important. 

Instinctive basis of art. — Love for the beautiful 
in form and color is perhaps instinctive. It is 
certainly universal. It is not confined to works 
of art as such, but is directed towards the common 
things of hfe as well. Indeed, nature itself furnishes 
us the inspiration for much of our art, since symme- 
try, harmony, balance and proportion in form and 
arrangement, to say nothing of beauty in color of 
every shade and hue, are exhibited with a prodigality 
that can not be overlooked. Trees, shrubs, grasses, 
flowers, and insects — all are objects of beauty, 
giving pleasure to any child who is taught to open 
his eyes to them. Much of the decorative art which 
finds its way into the humblest homes as well as 
the homes of the rich is nothing more than con- 
ventionalized nature forms — leaf or flower, vine 
or fruit — applied to rugs, carpets, wall paper, 

147 



148 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

draperies, cloth, table linen, china, vases, and 
countless other things bought for utility. 

In the realm of fine art landscape paintings figure 
prominently. For these nature must furnish the 
basis. The artist must be skillful in his selection 
of a scene and a point of view. He must, moreover, 
be able to ignore or slight the natural elements that 
would mar the beauty of the whole picture and 
perhaps improve upon nature where that would 
serve his purpose. 

What makes art education moraL — Art of the 
sort already mentioned is perhaps neither moral 
nor immoral. It is simply unmoral. And yet it is 
not an exaggeration to assert that a child who learns 
to appreciate a beautiful picture, even a landscape 
painting, and still more the child who learns to 
produce that which is beautiful for the enjoyment of 
others, is developing at least one phase of his 
morality. It must be remembered that morality 
is not a simple thing but a complex of many factors. 
Perhaps it is primarily concerned with such traits 
of character as honesty, truthfulness, obedience, 
temperance, etc., yet among the duties which every 
one is called upon to sustain in his relationship with 
his fellows is that of giving pleasure instead of pain. 
Learning to produce art, therefore, and learning to 
appreciate and enjoy it is only another way of making 
life richer, more significant and more pleasurable 
for those about us. From this standpoint all art 
education is fundamentally moral education. 

Influence of the teacher's dress and personal 
appearance. — In the development of a proper 
artistic taste in children the teacher may well begin 



ART EDUCATION AND MORALITY 149 

by taking account of her own dress and personal 
appearance. It is difficult to overestimate the effect 
of the teacher's example upon the lives and ideals of 
children, even in the lower grades. She need not be 
gowned in the extremest fashions, nor does she need 
to be very expensively dressed. But anything less 
than scrupulous cleanliness of person and dress is 
unpardonable. If extravagance and extremes in 
dress are in bad taste in the schoolroom, niggardliness 
and carelessness are no less so. The teacher who 
permits her hair to "string" for lack of pins or 
a shampoo, who fastens her skirt awry, who knows 
not the wholesome effect upon children that comes 
from her frequent appearance in a clean, fresh 
shirt waist, or a bright new ribbon, is neither teach- 
ing her first important lesson in art appreciation nor 
is she doing what she might to develop in her pupils 
a proper consideration and respect for her and her 
authority. 

Influence of the schoolroom. — If the appearance 
of the teacher is the first factor, that of the school- 
room itself is the second one of importance. Every 
teacher knows that a child has more respect for a 
clean room than for a dirty one. It is relatively 
easy to inspire in children a proper regard for a 
school building that is new, with new and attractive 
furniture throughout. But every scratch or line 
with pen or pencil, and every notch cut with a jack- 
knife upon seat or desk invites a new one. Frazzled 
and ragged window shades hanging athwart the 
windows ; cheap, dust-covered chromos or last 
year's calendars hanging upon the walls, perhaps out 
of plumb ; a teacher's desk disordered and topsy- 



150 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

turvy in the front of the room ; and bookcases and 
cabinets in confusion, with doors standing open, are 
all such powerful negative art influences that they 
go far towards offsetting whatever good might come 
from fifteen minutes per day devoted to drawing 
in the elementary school. The world is beginning 
to be very distrustful of any sort of course of instruc- 
tion in schools that does not modify taste and con- 
duct outside of that course. With this in mind, 
the teacher should not fail to recognize that good 
cooperative housekeeping in school is her first step 
to take in the development of art appreciation. 

Moral content of pictures. — When we approach 
our problem more closely and attempt to show what 
the school can do for the child's moral education 
through art as a medium, we find the task more 
difficult. Perhaps the reason is that much which 
the school should do for his art education has nothing 
to do with his moral education. If beauty is its 
own excuse for being, and if " art for art's sake " is 
justification enough for creating a work of art, as 
many, perhaps most, critics hold, then the school 
needs to be careful not to defeat the artist's purpose 
by trying to make his painting preach an unwarranted 
sermon to children. Goethe has been quoted ^ as 
saying : 

"A good work of art can, and will indeed, have moral 
consequences ; but to require moral ends of the artist, 
is to destroy his profession." 

Ruskin, on the other hand, is just as insistent that 
paintings shall be moral or religious in their effects. 

^ Griggs, The Philosophy of ArU P- 12. 



ART EDUCATION AND MORALITY 151 

Disclaiming any critical judgment in matters of 
this sort, and frankly recognizing that he is unable 
to reconcile the opposing claims of two schools of 
art critics, the writer still thinks there is a wealth of 
the painter's art which has such obvious moral 
value for children that it constitutes a legitimate 
means for their moral instruction. As an illustration 
of possibilities in this direction, let us call attention 
to a few pictures which children should know. 
Whatever else may constitute the chief value of 
the following, their study can hardly fail to leave a 
distinct moral impression upon the young student. 

Landseer's pictures as examples. — Landseer's 
" Distinguished Member of the Humane Society " 
is a painting of a large Newfoundland dog represented 
as a member of a Kfe-saving crew. The nobility, 
intelligence, kindliness, and strength of the dog are 
all so well shown in the picture that an intimate 
acquaintance with it, with a few well-chosen stories 
of lives actually saved by Newfoundland, St. 
Bernard, or other dogs, must serve to increase a 
child's respect for this most faithful friend that man 
has among the dumb animals. If kindness to 
animals is a moral virtue worth cultivating in chil- 
dren, this picture of Landseer's offers one means of 
developing such a trait. A study of the picture as a 
work of art would involve some attention to detail 
— to questions of motive, arrangement, light and 
shade, texture, and still other matters, perhaps. 
But our point is this — and it applies with equal 
force to the other illustrations which follow — 
whatever use may be made of the picture from a 
purely artistic standpoint, it has moral significance 



152 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

and can be used for moral ends without doing violence 
to its art side. 

"Shoeing the Bay Mare " is another of Landseer's 
well-known paintings admitting of similar treatment. 
Indeed, the child who through these two pictures 
is led to a study of Landseer's own life will have one 
more stimulus prompting right treatment of dogs 
and horses, too. 

Millet's pictures. — " The Angelus," "The 
Gleaners," '' The First Step," " Feeding Her Birds," 
" The Sower," " Shepherdess," and " Man with 
the Hoe " are six paintings by Millet, the famous 
French painter of peasant life in his native country. 
The first one of the group represents the simple 
piety of the humble toilers of the field. The angelus 
bell, rung morning, noon, and night, is a call to 
prayer. That its summons was not unheeded is 
shown by the reverently bowed heads of the two 
central figures in the picture. " The First Step " 
and " Feeding Her Birds " are two pictures which 
immortalize beautiful domestic scenes of great 
tenderness and simplicity. The whole group have 
this in common, that they arouse sympathy and 
admiration for humble folk whose patience, courage, 
toil, and pathos mark them as belonging to the 
heroic type which Millet knew so well and of which 
he was one. But these qualities, one and all, are 
either moral or religious, and their exhibition and 
contemplation may be made contributory, at least, 
to something of the same sort in children when 
presented as Millet has embodied them. 

Rembrandt. — Rembrandt's " The Night Watch " 
lends itself to the teaching of patriotism, which is 



ART EDUCATION AND MORALITY 153 

the message the artist is alleged to have had in 
mind, though he was commissioned to paint merely 
a portrait. 

Religion in art. — Turning from these we may 
mention a whole group of famous pictures, every one 
of which breathes the spirit of religion. Not to 
know them and not to know something of the artists 
who painted them is to confess ignorance of the 
most celebrated paintings and painters the world has 
known. Their very titles suggest, without comment, 
their religious themes and objects, and the character 
of the teachings they might reenforce. The list 
follows : 

Raphael's " Sistine Madonna," and 

his "Transfiguration." 
Titian's " Assumption of the Virgin." 
Michelangelo's " The Last Judgment." 
Rubens' " Descent from the Cross." 
Murillo's " Immaculate Conception." 
Correggio's " Holy Night." 
Da Vinci's "The Last Supper." 

Any class interested in the numerous legends 
clustering about the Holy Grail, and the literature 
embodying them, can profit by the " Sir Galahad," 
painted by Watts. This picture is justly popular 
with all classes, whether educated or not. In 
pictorial form it says just what Tennyson makes 
Sir Galahad say, 

"My strength is as the strength of ten, ,^ 

Because my heart is pure." 

As long as motherhood is held as sacred, and as 
long as men are made better by cherishing the 



154 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

memory of their mothers, Whistler's " Portrait of 
the Painter's Mother '' will continue to have a moral 
value as a teacher. 

Examples need not be multiplied. The foregoing 
are meant to be suggestive only, but it must be 
evident that there is diversity enough in the range 
of worth-while art to make it possible, at least by 
indirection, to use art in such a way as to strengthen 
both moral and religious ideas and ideals in children, 
even though we concede the point that art does not 
exist primarily to preach a sermon or point a moral. 

Art for life's sake. — There is another view of art, 
or more accurately stated, another conception of its 
place in life, that seems to be growing in popularity 
recently. In contrast to the former phrase, " Art 
for art's sake," it is stated as " Art for life's sake." 
It seems to involve more of the ethical bearings of 
art than was possible so long as art had to do with 
statuary and paintings for the cultivated few, to be 
collected in galleries and museums or other reposi- 
tories more or less isolated from the walks of common 
men and women. It demands that beauty shall 
not be separate and apart from utility, but identified 
with and embodied in the useful object in the making. 

In the schools it is taking the form of a distinct 
arts and crafts movement in which pottery, jewelry, 
and useful articles made in the woodworking shops 
shall exhibit the artistic side of the work not less 
than the utilitarian side. In the drawing courses 
the tendency is more and more to apply the principles 
of decoration and design to something more useful 
and more substantial than a sheet of drawing paper. 
To this end the decoration of toys, of jars, boxes, 



ART EDUCATION AND MORALITY 155 

vases, bottles, garments made in household arts 
courses, etc., is taking the place of the older types of 
work done with pencil, charcoal, and water color. 
This it not quite the realization of the doctrines of 
such leaders as Emerson, Ruskin, Morris, and Elbert 
Hubbard, who insisted that " there should be no 
artificial combination of use and beauty, but the 
useful should be created as art." It is, however, a 
long step in that direction. 

Ruskin's view. — In a series of lectures on art 
delivered by Ruskin before the University of Oxford 
in 1870, he stated that the great arts " can have but 
three principal directions of purpose ; first, that of 
enforcing the reHgion of men ; second, that of perfect- 
ing their ethical state; third, that of doing them 
material service." Whatever may be thought of the 
first two purposes he stated, there are abundant 
signs that his third purpose is being accepted very 
generally today. 

As we look about us and note the new appHed 
forms of art today; the growing interest in a more 
beautiful architecture, even for houses for residence ; 
the increased attention which is given to city 
planning, to landscape gardening, to use of shrub- 
bery for artistic effect about our individual houses, 
and to the multiphed attempts to lessen the amount 
of ugliness in the surroundings of the masses of the 
people, where they live and where they work: we 
can not but be hopeful, even if changes are coming 
very slowly. Ruskin's writings in the Stones of 
Venice and Seven Lamps of Architecture, to say 
nothing of his numerous lectures, are beginning to 
have some influence upon our beliefs and practices. 



156 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

even here and now. Some of his teachings of a half 
century ago laid down lines along which we shall 
doubtless make more rapid advance in the near 
future. Among the most pertinent of them, I 
quote the following : 

"Giving brightness to pictures is much, but giving 
brightness to life more. . . . To get your country clean, 
and your people lovely; ... I assure you that is a 
necessary work of art to begin with. . . . There has 
indeed been art in countries where people lived in dirt 
to serve God, but never in countries where people lived 
in dirt to serve the devil. . . . All the arts are founded 
on agriculture by the hand, and on the graces, and kind- 
ness of feeding and dressing, and lodging your people. 
Greek art begins in the gardens of Alcinous — perfect 
order, leeks in beds, and fountains in pipes. And Chris- 
tian art, as it arose out of chivalry, was only possible so 
far as chivalry compelled both kings and knights to care 
for the right personal training of their people. . . . 
From highest to lowest, health of art has first depended 
on reference to industrial use. There is first the need of 
cup ... to drink from. And to hold it conveniently, 
you must put a handle to it; and to fill it when it is 
empty you must have a large pitcher of some sort; and 
to carry the pitcher you may most advisably have two 
handles. Modify the forms of these needful possessions 
according to the various requirements of drinking largely 
and drinking delicately ; of pouring easily out, or of keep- 
ing for years the perfume in ; of storing in cellars, or 
bearing from fountains, — and you have a resultant 
series of beautiful form and decoration, from the rude 
amphora of red earth up to Cellini's vases of gems and 
crystal, in which series . . . are developed the most 
beautiful lines and most perfect types of severe composi- 
tion which have yet been attained by art. . . . After 



ART EDUCATION AND MORALITY 157 

recovering for the poor, wholesomeness of food, your next 
step towards founding schools of art . . . must be in 
recovering, for the poor, decency and wholesomeness of 
dress; thoroughly good in substance, fitted for their 
daily work, becoming to their rank in life, and worn with 
order and dignity. 

"Men must desire to have their dwelling places built 
as strongly as possible, and furnished and decorated 
daintily, and set in pleasant places, in bright light and 
good air. . . . And when the houses are grouped to- 
gether in cities, men must have so much civic fellowship 
as to subject their architecture to a common law, and so 
much pride as to desire that the whole gathered group of 
human dwellings should be a lovely thing, not a frightful 
one, on the face of the earth. ... It is not possible to 
have any right morality, happiness, or art in any country 
where the cities are . . . clotted and coagulated ; spots 
of a dreadful mildew spreading by patches and blotches 
over the country they consume. . . . 

"The fine arts are not to be learned by Locomotion, 
but by making the homes we live in lovely, and by stay- 
ing in them ; — the fine arts are not to be learned by 
Competition, but by doing our quiet best in our own 
way ; — the fine arts are not to be learned by Exhibition, 
but by doing what is right, and making what is honest, 
whether it be exhibited or not ; — and, for the sum of all, 
that men must paint and build neither for pride nor for 
money, but for love ; for love of their art, for love of their 
neighbor, and whatever better love may be than these 
founded on these." 

Caiiin's view. — In a recent book ^ the writer has 
one chapter entitled " The World's Need of Art " 
beginning, " This book, I hope, will make it clear 

1 Charles H. Caffin, Art for Life's Sake. 



158 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

that Art is essential to life ; that without it we 
can not conceive of Human Betterment." But he 
deplores the " arbitrary discrimination between 
artist and artistic craftsman," saying that it is " time 
that we freed ourselves from the cant of such dis- 
criminations. Other people are estimated according 
to their efficiency. Let us apply the same test to 
artists and recognize that an indifferent artist is 
nothing like as estimable, from the point of view of 
his output, as, for example, an efficient plumber." 
He suggests that we embrace in the term ** artist," 
" Any worker in any art whatsoever, whose motive 
is to increase the Beauty of Life and Living and 
whose efficiency in his particular art is such that he 
' dehvers the goods.' " 

Griggs and the service of art. — Griggs closes his 
Philosophy of Art with a kindred thought expressed 
as follows : 

**The service of art to the human spirit is not limited 
to the few, but is universal for all. Every one ought to 
be, not only a loving and appreciative student of the 
fine arts, but a creative artist in the form and color, the 
melody and harmony of life ; and for student and artist 
alike, art is not for adornment's sake, or preaching's sake, 
or pleasure's sake, not for the sake of gratifying the senses 
or exhibiting technical skill, not art for art's sake, but for 
lifers sake'' 

Longfellow taught the same lesson in the following 
stanzas from " The Builders " : 

"In the elder days of Art 

Builders wrought with greatest care 
Each minute and unseen part; 
For the Gods see everywhere. 



ART EDUCATION AND MORALITY 159 

"Let us do our work as well, 

Both the unseen and the seen ; 
Make the house, where Gods may dwell, 
Beautiful, entire, and clean." 



Questions and Suggestions 

1. Upon what grounds do you justify drawing and 
painting in the public schools ? In what sense is fine 
art essentially unselfish ? 

2. Show how it is possible to make a child's love for 
the beautiful "carry over" into respect for property. 

3. Discuss the paragraph in the chapter calling atten- 
tion to the influence of the teacher's dress upon children. 

4. Find and report pictures not mentioned in the 
chapter having values distinctly moral. How can they 
be used most effectively for moral ends .? 

5. Distinguish between "Art for art's sake" and "Art 
for life's sake." Which of these views should have the 
larger place in the art work of the schools .? Why .? 

6. Consider the relative values of different uses that 
may be made of pictures in the schoolroom ; analysis 
and study as a part of the language work ; exhibitions of 
traveling exhibits ; well-chosen pictures hung permanently 
in the schoolroom ; classes conducted to art institutes and 
museums ; lectures upon masterpieces of art. 

7. What should be your attitude toward the pupil 
who loves to draw or paint when he does not have his 
arithmetic or geography lesson .? 

8. Think of the picture or pictures that have made the 
most marked impression upon you, and account for their 
influence if you can. 

9. Is there any moral influence in flowers, shrubs, and 
well-ordered lawns and gardens, clean alleys, and attrac- 
tive surroundings .? Does beauty in art and nature tend 



l6o MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

to translate itself into beauty of character and conduct, 
or is this assumption a mere figment of imagination ? 

10. What is the excuse for setting up in pubHc places 
the statues of such men as Lincoln, Washington, Lafayette, 
or other great characters ? 

11. Why does one branch of the Christian church make 
such Hberal use of pictures, images, and statues ? 

12. Distinguish between artist and artisan. 



References for Further Reading 

Caffin, C. H. : Art for Life's Sake. Prang Educational Co. 
Casey, William C. : Masterpieces in Art. A. Flanagan & Co. 
Griggs, Edward Howard : The Philosophy of Art. B. W. 

Huebsch. 
Van Dyke, J. C. : Meaning of Pictures. Scribner's. 



CHAPTER XII 

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION THROUGH 
NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 

"Nature, the vicar of the almightie Lord." 

Chaucer, Assembly of Foules. 

"'Tis Elder Scripture, writ by God's own hand : 
Scripture authentic ! Uncorrupt by man." 

Dr. E. Young, Night Thoughts, Night IX, 

"How desolate were nature, and how void 

Of every charm, how like a naked waste 

Of Africa, were not a present God 

Beheld employing, in its various scenes, 
I His active might to animate and adorn." 

Carlos Wilcox, God Everywhere in Nature. 

"The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned 
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave. 
And spread the roof above them, — ere he framed 
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back 
The sound of anthems ; in the darkling wood, 
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down, 
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 
And supplication. For his simple heart 
Might not resist the sacred influences 
Which, from the stilly twilight of the place. 
And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven 

i6i 



1 62 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound 
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once 
All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed 
His spirit with the thought of boundless power 
And inaccessible majesty." 

William Cullen Bryant, A Forest Hymn. 

The moral aim not the chief aim. — There are, of 
course, better and more direct ways of teaching a 
child religion, and of training him in the religious 
life, than through the avenue of nature study and 
science, but this is one legitimate way. There are 
more weighty reasons for teaching this subject than 
to teach either moral or religious truths, but this is 
one reason. Certainly the intellectual satisfaction 
that comes from understanding the secrets of nature, 
and the practical use to which much of this knowl- 
edge can be put, constitute the larger excuse for its 
study. But some of the greatest nature lovers, and 
some of its best interpreters, have been able to 
invest it with moral, and even with religious, idealism 
that is at least a wholesome thing for young students 
to know. Bryant and Wordsworth, for example, 
may well be studied in connection with nature study 
courses, for their spiritual interpretations need not 
detract from any purely scientific approaches to the 
subject, while their intense love for nature may be 
expected to kindle some of the same sort of feeling 
for it in the heart and mind of the 3^oung student 
coming into first-hand contact with it. Love for 
an object often follows an understanding of it, 
but more often it happens that love precedes and 
lights the way, making a more accurate under- 



THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 163 

standing possible later on. If some one is ready to 
object that love is blind, he must at least admit that 
prejudice, and indifference, and hate are not less so, 
whether considered in relation to nature or to men 
and women. The best guarantee that a child will 
come to understand and know nature is for him first 
to love it. Then he will be ready to listen to its 
message and to hear its voice. Some teachers will 
agree with Wordsworth that : 

"One impulse from a vernal wood 
May teach you more of man, 
Of moral evil and of good, 
Than all the sages can." 

But if one can not subscribe to this statement, he 
will at least admit that there are some moral and 
religious values that may result from it — values 
inherent in the subject as well as the teacher who 
teaches it. 

If it fails in any individual case to result in such 
training, the explanation is to be sought in the mis- 
placed emphasis in the course, or in the character 
of the teacher. 

Reflex influence of their study upon scientists. — 
It is worthy of note that most great naturalists and 
scientists have through their studies increased, if 
they did not induce, their belief in God as the Creator 
of the Universe. This is not a world of accident and 
chance, and any serious study of its phenomena is 
likely to lead one to a reverent recognition that it 
can not be accounted for without God. While there 
is not the opportunity in the public schools for a 
study of the profound aspects of nature and science, 



164 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

such as demand an explanation of first causes in 
the sense that philosophy inquires after them, yet 
even the superficial and fragmentary studies appro- 
priate to children may be made to show nature as 
one of the revelations of God. What the psalmist 
was able to declare three thousand years ago, children 
ought to be led to see today — that '' the heavens 
declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth 
his handiwork." But grass and flowers, birds and 
trees, rivers and hills, and all else under and around 
us make the same sort of declaration and show the 
presence of the same hand. 

Huxley quoted. — Spencer quotes Professor Hux- 
ley approvingly as saying at the close of a course 
of lectures that : " True science and true religion 
are twin-sisters, and the separation of either from 
the other is sure to prove the death of both. Science 
prospers exactly in proportion as it is religious ; and 
religion flourishes in exact proportion to the scientific 
depth and firmness of its basis. The great deeds of 
philosophers have been less the fruit of their intellect 
than of the direction of that intellect by an eminently 
rehgious tone of mind. Truth has yielded herself 
rather to their patience, their love, their single- 
heartedness, and their self-denial, than to their 
logical acumen." 

Nature study in relation to relaxation and pleasure. 
— - One indirect gain nature study off'ers in company 
with many other subjects is that a love for any 
phase of nature kindled in childhood gives direction 
to the pleasures and recreations of later hfe. A 
passion for the study of butterflies, beetles, flowers, 
stars, rocks, shells, trees, or anything else that may 



THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 165 

be taken up as an avocation or a hobby for one's 
leisure, is a reasonable guarantee that unworthy 
degrading pleasures are not to have a very prominent 
place in one's life. There is more hope for a healthy 
morality in the child who, like Jaques, 

"Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything," 

than for the child of whom it can be said, as Words- 
worth said of Peter Bell, 

"A primrose by a river's brim 
A yellow primrose was to him. 
And it was nothing more." 

Tennyson holds up an ideal that is worthy of 
presentation to a class in nature study, when he 
writes : 

"Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you out of the crannies, 
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
Little flower — but if I could understand 
What you are^ root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is." 

Specific results : Regard for truth. — If we ask 

for the specific results of scientific study it is not 
difficult to find some of them that are distinctly 
moral in their nature. One of them is a higher regard 
for truth. The scientist more than most men learns 
to make his words tally with the facts with which he 
deals. Guessing, exaggeration of statement, un- 
warranted use of superlatives, hasty generalizations, 
substitution of imaginative for perceptual and 



1 66 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

judicial thinking, are all unscientific. A pupil's 
tendency in any of these directions is at least par- 
tially overcome by a study of science if the teacher 
is worthy of her place. The scientific spirit is an 
attitude of mind which can be fully satisfied with 
nothing less than truth. It is an attitude which 
tends to lessen the friction between man and man 
in all their mutual relations. Where this spirit 
prevails men govern their conduct, not in the light 
of prejudice or whim or desire, but in the light of 
facts as they are. They become less dogmatic and 
more tolerant. The}^ tend to suspend judgment 
until the evidence is in. They learn to be modest 
in their assertions, knowing that fuller knowledge 
may change their beliefs. They are readier to con- 
cede the possibility of their being in error because 
they know so well that another may be in possession 
of a portion of the truth which they do not have. 
The scientific spirit leaves no room for bigotry, and 
its cultivation, therefore, makes men more congenial 
and more lovable as companions. 

It is no wonder that the poet has admonished us to 
** tear away the blinds of superstition " and to 
" sweep down the cobwebs of worn-out beliefs," 
and to throw our souls wide open to the light of 
reason and of knowledge, and further to 

" Be not afraid to thrust aside half-truths and grasp the 
whole." 

The whole history of the study of science is a 
record of just such advance towards the freedom 
that only truth can give. There is no bondage worse 
than the bondage of ignorance and superstition. 



THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 167 

No wonder, therefore, the Great Teacher said, 
" And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall 
make you free." 

Accuracy and fidelity. — A second moral result 
from the study of nature and science is accuracy 
of observation and fidelity in reporting the thing 
observed. To be sure this is an intellectual achieve- 
ment, but one with a moral side to it. Perhaps no 
subject, unless it is mathematics, tends so to develop 
this trait in a student. Indeed, one's progress in 
science is almost wholly determined by his growing 
abihty to observe and record with painstaking care. 
This accomplishment is a necessary prerequisite for 
the generalizations which find expression in the 
principles and laws which scientists have announced 
from time to time. Great scientists, therefore, 
have all been men who see, see minutely, observe 
details, record with accuracy, and report faithfully 
and with great exactness. Such a trait is of in- 
estimable value in enabhng men to articulate with 
each other without friction in social relationships. 
In courts of law, in performing one's part in a 
contract, in fulfilling any promise, in serving as a 
witness in court, in multitudinous situations, indeed, 
one is able to serve himself and to serve society well 
to the degree to which he has cultivated this faculty. 

Nature study and health. — In so far as nature 
study has meant a real first-hand study of nature in 
field and wood or other excursion in the great out- 
of-doors, it has promoted morals through the pro- 
motion of health and a better physique, in much the 
same way that play does it. There is general 
agreement that walking is one of the best forms of 



l68 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

physical exercise. There are but few muscles not 
called into use by it. In nature study excursions 
this exercise is combined with fresh air, sunshine, 
and an active, interested mind. The combination 
gives the basis, at least, for the sort of morality 
discussed in the chapter on play. 

Humane spirit. — When the study has for its 
object an acquaintance with the life and habits of 
some animal in its own environment, and when 
it substitutes the use of a camera for that of a gun, 
a further good is being achieved in the cultivation of 
a humane spirit that must underhe a proper ex- 
hibition of morality. The child who learns to 
respect life, and not to cause unnecessary suffering, 
even to a toad, is making progress towards living 
in right relations with his fellow man. The sub- 
stitution of an interest in animal life from the stand- 
point of a student and a critical observer, is one of 
the safeguards against the tendency of boys to get 
their sport from a dog's distress when he runs with a 
tin can tied to his tail, or from the terrors of a cat 
that has been attacked by a dog urged on by thought- 
less or cruel boys. It is one of the privileges of the 
teacher to teach the truth stated by Coleridge that : 

"He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small; 
For the dear God who loveth us, 
He made and loveth all." ^ 

Closely akin to the foregoing is a certain in- 
dependence of character that results from a study of 
things in nature study and science. Most teachers 

^ " Rime of the Ancient Mariner." 



THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 169 

have observed what Spencer long ago remarked 
concerning the study of languages, that the exclusive 
study of books tends to increase to undue proportions 
the respect for authority. One of the present-day 
aims in teaching pupils how to study is to make 
them independent in their thinking; to lead them 
to form conclusions of their own ; to enable them to 
see that books and writers are not infallible; and 
that submission to dogmatic assertions is not the 
mark of an independent mind. Every excursion 
into science; every attempt to learn something in 
nature from first-hand observation and experiment, 
offers an opportunity for the exercise of the in- 
dividual's judgment. Pupils may think out their 
own conclusions. They may test them when formed, 
through application to other data or phenomena. 
They learn to stand upon their own feet, and to 
use their own reasoning powers. Of course, books 
permit this sort of study, but their use to such ends 
is fraught with greater difficulty. 

Independence of character. — It is the peculiar 
merit of science that it tends to develop independent 
thinking in a high degree. " There is," says Jordan, 
" the greatest moral value as well as intellectual value 
in the independence that comes from knowing and 
knowing that one knows, and knowing why he knows." 

Respect for law and order. — The discovery of 
natural law and of nature's obedience to her laws 
is a discovery of moral worth to children. The 
regularity with which day and night alternate, the 
seasons succeed each other, and the tides ebb and 
flow ; the constancy with which principles of gravity, 
cohesion, and capillarity are exhibited ; the depend- 



I70 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

ability of nature in always behaving so-and-so under 
given conditions — all are good antidotes for a 
tendency on the part of the young to act from caprice, 
and without due regard for law and order. It is a 
valuable lesson to learn that this is an orderly uni- 
verse, and that men can live more happily in social 
relationships as they come to be dependable and 
constant in something of the same fashion that 
nature is. In the laboratory the immutability of 
nature's laws is an effective rebuke of the carelessness 
and inaccuracy of the student. Before he learns how 
reliable nature is, a child will frequently try to 
deceive his teacher, teUing him that he followed 
instructions exactly, and yet got an unexpected 
result. Later he learns, and he knows that his 
teacher knows, that if his results are surprising, 
he has not followed instructions with scrupulous 
care. His failure to get desired results is his own 
condemnation and must be so understood. 

Appreciation of economic values. — In recent 
years there has been a decided swing of the pendulum 
away from the sentimental aspects of nature study, 
and from the aimless attempts of teachers to have 
children merely observe and name and catalogue 
various natural objects. In harmony with the 
larger tendency to make all education serve some 
useful purpose in life, nature study is becoming 
practical. Its economic side is being studied as 
never before. This change, however, serves to 
increase the interest of most students in the subject, 
and to reveal the moral bearing of many of its 
phases at the same time. To the boy who sees in a 
bird only something to kill, or in a bird's nest some- 



THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 171 

thing to rob, it is a revelation to learn of the economic 
value of birds because of their capacity to devour 
insects that are known to be the enemies of man. 
A study of birds becomes a study of man's friends, 
and their protection a matter of moral significance 
because it means the promotion of the social good. 
Bird study may well include an observation of the 
birds common to a given locality, their migrations, 
their nesting habits, their natural enemies, their 
food, etc. Bulletins published by the government 
tell of crop losses aggregating incredible millions of 
dollars annually — losses that might be prevented 
by encouraging the presence of birds that would 
feed upon the insects responsible for these losses. 

In the " Birds of Killingworth,'' Longfellow has 
made the Poet's Tale tell the tragic fate of a village 
which decided to kill the birds because they 

"Levied blackmail upon the garden beds 
And cornfields." 

The Preceptor made an eloquent plea for them, but 
in vain. The dreadful massacre began, and ended 
in a " very St. Bartholomew of Birds." Summer 
came, and all the birds were dead ; 

"... in the orchards fed 

Myriads of caterpillars, and around 
The cultivated fields and garden beds 

Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found 
No foe to check their march, till they had made 
The land a desert without leaf or shade." 

What Longfellow here teaches in poetic prophecy, 
the naturalist now tells as a prosaic fact. The 



172 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Audubon societies are therefore trying everywhere 
to get children to become acquainted with birds, to 
see their aesthetic values, to befriend them, and 
to understand the large service they render to man- 
kind in their power to destroy the insect life which 
would so easily become a real menace to man but 
for their presence. 

It has been estimated that every toad in a garden 
is worth more than eighteen dollars per annum to a 
farmer or gardener as a destroyer of insects. If the 
ancient stories about the jewel he wears in his head 
are all myths, there is still abundant reason for an 
interest in the toad's marvelous eye, and in his hfe 
history and habits in general, since it has been de- 
monstrated that he is such a valuable friend of man. 

But it is not toads and birds alone that can be 
rated as friends of man, and objects of study worthy 
of a place in a nature study course. Angleworms 
as instruments for increasing the porosity of soil ; 
bees as a medium for the pollination and fertihza- 
tion of flowers and fruits ; clover and vetch and peas 
as laboratories for converting the nitrogen of the 
air into nitrates that will enrich our fields ; coal that 
stores up the sun's rays of a hundred years and holds 
them in the form of latent heat for untold thousands 
of years to give them up again as man needs them 
for heat and power ; vegetables for his food ; trees 
and rocks and iron for his houses, his machinery, his 
furniture, and his other comforts, tools, and con- 
veniences ; gold and silver for his coin ; water for 
his very life itself — these and a thousand other 
things can be studied in relation to man and his 
needs in civilized society. There are uses of every 



THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 



173 



one that are distinctly moral. There are other uses 
just as plainly immoral. Any study of things in 
nature that aids the young student to become 
interested in the proper use and to refrain from the 
abuse of them is achieving a moral purpose. The 
conservation of our natural resources is a moral 
obKgation resting upon us. Every bit of science 
which aids us in achieving this result, every scientific 
discovery and every application of the truths of 
science, which enable man to subdue nature for the 
social good, may rightly be regarded as possessed 
of moral significance. 

Relation to medicine, etc. — The scientific studies 
carried on in the agricultural schools and experiment 
stations of the country are designed to make it 
easier to feed the world ; the patient researches of such 
bacteriologists as Koch and Pasteur enable society 
to relieve its members from sickness and suffering 
and to save them from premature death ; the work 
of Edison ministers to the comfort and convenience 
of mankind in scores of ways ; the scientist who dis- 
covered the relation between a certain kind of mos- 
quito and yellow fever was a moral benefactor. 

War and science. — Today, when the United 
States is taking its part in the great international 
conflict, in the name of civilization and for the sake 
of humanity, though it feels that its cause is just it 
must depend for success upon the combined contri- 
butions of men of science in every field of endeavor 
— agriculture, physics, and chemistry especially. 
Patriotism and a righteous desire to serve humanity 
are no more availing at a time like this, if compelled 
to fight alone, than are piety and a desire to save the 



174 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

world upon the part of a preacher. To them must 
obviously be added a period of intellectual and other 
forms of preparedness before the minister can trans- 
late his desire into effective action. Just so is a 
great and patriotic nation finding that it can be 
effective only by enhsting and utiKzing every type 
of scientific endeavor in the effort to translate its 
purpose and its ideals into effective action. 

Science in relation to Deity. — Herbert Spencer, 
in his essay, " What Knowledge Is of Most Worth," 
undertakes to show that the answer is science, 
whether considered for purposes of discipline or 
guidance. Most of the essay is devoted to a con- 
sideration of its intellectual values with which we 
are not here concerned, but in briefly arguing for 
the religious value of science, he closes with this 
remarkable paragraph : 

"While towards the traditions and authorities of men 
its attitude may be proud, before the impenetrable veil 
which hides the Absolute its attitude is humble — a true 
pride and a true humility. Only the sincere man of 
science — and by this title we do not mean the mere 
calculator of distances, or analyzer of compounds, or 
labeller of species; but him who through lower truths 
seeks higher, and eventually the highest — only the 
genuine man of science, we say, can truly know how 
utterly beyond, not only human knowledge, but human 
conception, is the Universal Power, of which Nature, 
and Life, and Thought are manifestations." 

Dr. Hodge, who has perhaps given us the best 
book on nature study that has yet been written, 
says, in kindred terms : 



THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 175 

"No one can love nature and not love its Author, and 
if we can find a nature study that shall insure a sincere 
love, we shall be laying the surest possible foundation for 
religious character." ^ 

Religion involves man's love for God, but the 
modern world has learned from Jesus Christ that 
man's love for his fellow man is a fair measure of his 
love for his God, and that his love of both can best be 
shown in service. The student who learns nature's 
secrets that she may be made to serve humanity is 
thus approaching God through a legitimate channel. 
It is one way of thinking God's thoughts and pur- 
poses after him, and of joining hands with the 
Almighty in acts of creation. Any natural science 
study that enables two blades of grass to grow where 
but one grew before ; and any that results in the 
transformation of a desert place into a garden, is a 
study that must be rated as moral in its results and 
may easily become religious. 

Lowell had a similar thought in mind when he 
wrote : 

"Who does his duty is a question 
Too complex to be solved by me, 
But he, I venture the suggestion. 
Does part of his that plants a tree." 

Certainly one of the fine exhibitions of altruism 
which we may find is that of the old man who plants 
an orchard or a tree for the benefit of a future genera- 
tion, knowing full well that he can not hope to live 
long enough personally to enjoy its fruit or its 
shade. 

1 Nature Study and Life, p. 30. 



176 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

The actual practical observance of Arbor Day in 
the schoolroom, if it is accompanied by such in- 
struction in the planting, growth, and care of shrubs 
and trees as is appropriate to a given soil or locality, 
is to be commended on moral grounds. It tends 
towards the development of the social and altruistic 
impulses as well as the more immediate aesthetic 
results which may justify it. 

By no means can it be shown that everything 
which it is worth while to study in nature has the 
intimate relation to man, his needs and satisfactions 
that the apple tree has, but Bryant's " The Planting 
of the Apple-Tree " points out much that is typical 
of a phase of nature study that is most profitable for 
elementary school study. Three stanzas of the 
poem are given below because they best embody this 
moral aspect of nature, this social relationship be- 
tween nature and human nature : 

"What plant we in this apple-tree ? 
Sweets for a hundred flowery springs 
To load the May-wind's restless wings. 
When, from the orchard row, he pours 
Its fragrance through our open doors ; 

A world of blossoms for the bee, 
Flowers for the sick girl's silent room, 
For the glad infant sprigs of bloom, 
We plant with the apple-tree. 

"What plant we in this apple-tree! 
Fruits that shall swell in sunny June, 
And redden in the August noon, 
And drop, when gentle airs come by, 
That fan the blue September sky, 



THROUGH NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE 177 

While children come, with cries of glee. 
And seek them where the fragrant grass 
Betrays their bed to those who pass. 

At the foot of the apple-tree. 

"And when, above this apple-tree. 
The winter stars are quivering bright. 
And winds go howling through the night, 
Girls, whose young eyes overflow with mirth, 
Shall peel its fruit by cottage hearth. 

And guests in prouder homes shall see. 
Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine 
And golden orange of the Line, 

The fruit of the apple-tree." 



Questions and Suggestions 

1. Does knowledge of nature and science tend most 
towards or away from a development of the spiritual 
nature in man ? Find what you can in the life of Bryant, 
Wordsworth, Agassiz, Audubon, Muir, Burroughs, 
Spencer, Darwin, Pasteur, Huxley, and others to con- 
firm or disprove your opinion. 

2. Comment upon the quotation from Huxley. 

3. Justify the statement of the text that a study of 
science results in a higher regard for truth. What do 
you understand by the "scientific method" as applied 
to subjects outside the realm of science .? 

4. Add to the illustrations in the text to show that 
certain very practical aspects of nature study have social 
and moral values. Use illustrations from the discoveries 
of Burbank, Edison, Koch, Pasteur, and Lister to prove 
this statement. 

5. Discuss the quotations in the text from Spencer 
and from Hodge. 



178 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

6. Justify the observance of Arbor Day upon moral 
grounds ; upon aesthetic grounds. 

7. Try to estimate the relative importance to your own 
character, from the standpoint of initiative and inde- 
pendence, of knowledge gained through first-hand ob- 
servation, study, and experiment, and that which came 
from books and the authority of some one else. 

8. Think of the scientific studies that have resulted in 
the use of antiseptics, disinfectants, vaccines, anaesthesia, 
refrigeration, gas masks, pasteurization, fertilizers of soil, 
rotation of crops, successful war upon mosquitoes, tubercle 
bacilli, and codling moths, and other achievements that 
may occur to you, and discuss them in the light of their 
moral worth. 

9. Does increased scientific knowledge and insight 
make one more dogmatic and intolerant or add to his 
humility ^ Comment upon the following statement : 
"To know one thing well is to know the whole universe." 

References for Further Reading 

FiSKE, John: Through Nature to God. Houghton Mifflin Co. 
Hamilton, Lady Claud : Louis Pasteur, His Life and Labors. 

D. Appleton & Co. 
Hodge, Clifton F. : Nature Study and Life, chapter 11. Ginn 

&Co. 
Jordan, David Starr: Nature Study and Moral Culture, in 

Proceedings N. E. A. 1896, pp. 130-141. 
McMuRRY, Charles A. : Special Method in Elementary 

Science, chapters 11, v, and vi. Macmillan Co. 
Spencer, Herbert: Education: What Knowledge Is of Most 

Worth. Hurst & Co. 



CHAPTER XIII 

MORAL INSTRUCTION THROUGH MANUAL 
TRAINING 

Meaning of the phrase as used. — In this chap- 
ter the term manual training is used in a broad and 
untechnical sense. Let it be understood to include 
the training which comes from using the hand 
freely, as well as the mind, whether in the house- 
hold arts and sciences, agriculture, mechanic arts 
courses, or trades. It may, indeed, be applied as 
aptly to the training which comes from useful labor 
done by children outside of school, provided it be 
done under such parental or other supervision that 
standards and ideals of excellence are required of the 
worker, and habits of a proper sort are set up. 
In fact, some children seem to need a certain con- 
tact with the world of industry and with men of 
practical affairs to appreciate the fact that the 
standards of conduct urged and held up in the best 
schools are not merely academic standards but the 
standards of the business and industrial world, and 
for that very reason have a place in the school. 
In so far, therefore, as a boy learns lessons in obedi- 
ence, punctuality, fidehty, accuracy, industry, neat- 
ness, politeness, self-control, reliability, initiative, 
and cooperation, he is learning valuable moral les- 

179 



i8o MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

sons, whether they are learned in school, shop, home, 
store, or office. 

Crediting outside work. — The slowly growing 
custom of giving children school credit for home and 
other outside work is based upon a recognition of 
this principle. The social and moral value of the 
work done by the farmer boy who does the morning 
chores before starting to school and the evening 
chores after his return, including, perhaps, the 
watering and feeding of the stock, gathering the 
eggs, milking the cows, chopping and carrying 
in wood ; or by the girl who does such household 
work as preparing, or helping to prepare, the morn- 
ing and evening meals, washing dishes, making beds, 
sweeping, dusting, ironing, sewing, darning, and 
other homely but very necessary domestic tasks, is 
not surpassed and seldom equaled by the more 
formal manual and domestic art courses offered in 
our good schools today. Where parents are wise 
enough to require such service at the hands of their 
children today; or, assuming such wisdom, where 
the condition of life make it possible for them to 
give their children such an opportunity for service, 
there is not a large need for such courses in school. 
It is remembered, of course, that there are thou- 
sands of parents in village and city who have noth- 
ing worth while for their children, and particularly 
their boys, to do. For these the manual courses in 
school offer almost the only opportunity to teach 
the lessons discussed in this chapter. 

Manual training found its way into the elementary 
schools upon other grounds than moral ones, but it 
is doubtful whether many subjects equal it in moral 



THROUGH MANUAL TRAINING i8i 

values, and for the " motorminded " child it is 
probably superior to most other subjects having a 
moral aim. The teacher trained only in academic 
lines is likely to have more respect for this late- 
comer into the curriculum if she consider what it 
has to commend it in this direction. 

Reformatories first to see moral value of work. — 
The reformatories of the country recognized the 
moral effects of labor before the schools gave evi- 
dence of seeing them. The transformation of prisons 
and penitentiaries into reformatory schools and 
workshops is one of the most important social re- 
forms of modern times. In the former, prisoners 
were kept in idleness, and sometimes in solitary 
confinement for long periods of years, only to come 
out at last bitter and resentful against society for 
what was too often rightly felt to be its unjust 
treatment of them. In the latter, there are social 
contact, books, music, sermons, and, best of all, 
useful labor, to occupy most of the waking hours 
of every prisoner. The vice of idleness more than 
any other is scrupulously avoided. A trade is 
followed and often taught, while the habit of industry 
is one of the best fruits of a prison sentence. The 
story has often been told of a visit to a well-managed 
reformatory by a man who had several idle, worth- 
less sons. He was so impressed by the discipline 
of the institution, the regular habits, and the indus- 
try of its inmates that he wanted to know on what 
terms his sons might be admitted ! The story may 
not be true, but might well be so, since it illustrates 
a truth so well. 

It seems strange that manual training was not 



1 82 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

earlier recognized as being a great formative agent 
in the development of substantial character; but 
its reformative influence having been demonstrated 
in a number of institutions, it was not difficult to 
conclude, and then to demonstrate, that it has no 
less value for the normal child as a factor in char- 
acter-building. Today no system of public schools 
worthy of the name can be found without some 
form of manual training in grades, high school, or 
both. 

Appeal to interests of children. — Viewed from 
the standpoint of morality alone, several things can 
be claimed for manual training. First of all, it ap- 
peals to the native interests of man}^ children who 
can not be sufficiently interested in books and 
bookish courses. Without interest in the thing 
studied it is difficult for any child to grow much 
in stability of character while pursuing it. It is 
not necessary here to review the opposing claims 
of the advocates of interest and effort in education. 
The reader who wishes to pursue this subject may 
find it profitable to consult Dewey's splendid mono- 
graph.^ But it may be conservatively asserted that 
thousands of children have found in industrial sub- 
jects which constantly require the use of hand and 
mind at the same time, their first genuine interest 
in school. Every teacher knows that without such 
an interest many children are daily exhibiting such 
traits as indifference, laziness, tardiness, truancy, 
and disobedience — traits and tendencies for which 
the intellectual and other acquisitions resulting from 
the work of the school are very slight compensations. 

^ Interest and Efort in Education. 



THROUGH MANUAL TRAINING 183 

Indeed, there is ground for the fear that both teachers 
and parents have been altogether too bhnd in their 
devotion to the school and in their tacit assumption 
that a child will necessarily be better ofF for spend- 
ing eight or twelve years in school, regardless of his 
attitude and habits resulting therefrom. " In our 
thirst for information we have become school mad. 
I say it because we undertake to absorb practically 
every moment of the time of the child in his academic 
work, most of it with books deahng either with 
ancient affairs or with abstract information which, 
good though it is, can not constitute a sufficient prep- 
aration for a life in the present and with the con- 
crete." ^ Surely it is true that if there is not some- 
thing in the school that is compelling enough in its 
interesting appeal to overcome the vices named 
above, it is better to take a child out of school and 
surround him with such opportunities for a rational 
and wholesome response as will tend towards habits 
and attitudes that are moral. With an abiding 
faith in the power for good in our public schools, 
may we not beHeve that some children are so con- 
stituted that many of the most desirable elements 
of character in them are sacrificed ; sacrificed, too, 
when they might be conserved and developed, were 
the children not compelled to remain in school in- 
different and unresponsive to its appeals ? 

For some such children manual training has proved 
to be the interesting educative factor in the cur- 
riculum. For many more it would prove so, if 
more time could be given the subject, and if a more 
varied curriculum of manual subjects could be of- 

* Davenport, Education for Efficiency, p. 78. 



1 84 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

fered. My attention was called some time ago to 
a few boys who were the bane of their teachers' 
lives until they were given permission to enter a 
school blacksmith shop for an hour every day. 
Under the stimulus of their newly found interest in 
the shop, they became tractable, dutiful, regular in 
their attendance, and finally resumed their dis- 
continued study of formal grammar even, with a 
fair degree of success. 

But the point illustrated is just this : that the type 
of schoolwork which really educates is one in which 
the child is interested ; and that manual activities 
awaken interests in many children who are unre- 
sponsive to academic appeals. The pity is that most 
of our schools have but a few lines of manual studies 
in their curricula, and so fail to awaken many in- 
terests that would easily be aroused by a more 
varied and differentiated manual course. 

A lesson from Tuskegee. — One of the secrets 
of the success of the late Booker T. Washington's 
school at Tuskegee, Alabama, is to be found at 
this point. It offers opportunities in a score or more 
of manual lines, and really teaches as many trades. 
Every student there can find something of interest 
to him, and having found it, he can devote himself 
to it with an energy and a singleness of purpose 
and enthusiasm that make for the development of 
character as well as technical skill. Indeed, Booker 
Washington himself was in the habit of saying that 
he was not less concerned with the problem of mak- 
ing a better man out of a brick-mason than of mak- 
ing a better mason out of a man. He did both, to 
be sure, but he could not have hoped to give technical 



THROUGH MANUAL TRAINING 185 

skill to his students and with the same training leave 
a permanent stamp upon their character if he had 
not had for each one of them a type of work in 
which his interests were engaged to the point of 
taking hold of his will, the very citadel of his 
morality. In view of the great numbers of colored 
people who are ilKterate and unskilled in the trades, 
it is no wonder that the founder of Tuskegee had 
pride in saying on so many occasions that " not a 
single graduate of the Hampton Institute or the 
Tuskegee Institute can be found today in any 
jail or state penitentiary." To my mind this is 
one of the best testimonials to the value of training 
in interesting manual lines along with academic and 
religious instruction, such as Tuskegee gives, in 
developing well-rounded and stable moral char- 
acter in a student. Plato made the mistake of con- 
founding knowledge and virtue, and the prisons of 
the country are eloquent witnesses of the fact that 
collegiate training of an academic sort is not always 
sufficient to produce a virtuous man. 

Work in relation to sympathy and appreciation. — 
In a democracy hke ours, in which so much depends 
upon a mutual recognition of the rights, privileges, 
and responsibilities of the rich and the poor, the 
educated and the less favored, capitalists and 
laborers, the native-born and the alien, there are 
few things which tend more to develop the spirit of 
brotherhood and of mutual respect, sympathy, and 
esteern in opposing classes, than manual activities 
in which children of these classes may have a part 
side by side. A man may be so wealthy that his 
son will never be likely to face the problem of having 



1 86 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

to work with his hands to earn his own Hving ; but 
if this son works at something, if he learns from 
actual experience what it means in time, in patience, 
in energy, in skill, to fashion a vase, or make a 
table, or hammer into shape and weld the links of 
a chain, he will likely develop a more wholesome 
respect and sympathy for his neighbor's son who can 
do these things better than he, and may perforce 
be compelled to do these or similar things as long 
as he lives. 

A man may regard the work of his wife in man- 
aging the household and directing the study, work, 
and play of his children as petty in its nature and 
not at all taxing her powers ; but the first time he 
is required to take her place for a day or longer, he 
is likely to develop a degree of sympathy for her and 
an appreciation of the magnitude of her task that 
he never felt before. Not long ago I watched one 
of my boys, a boy of fourteen, as he painted the 
interior of a bedroom in our home. It was a vol- 
untary service on his part and he had spent some 
hours upon the task before I observed him. It 
looked both simple and easy to do, but as I watched 
him at work I soon concluded that he was not as 
careful as he should have been to confine his paint 
to the walls, apply it evenly over the whole surface, 
and keep it off of the woodwork surrounding doors 
and windows in these walls. Happily for both of 
us, I did not reproach him for carelessness, but 
asked for the brush that I might show him just how 
to do it well. In less than two minutes I learned 
that it was not half so simple a task for an amateur 
as it looked to be, and after a few smears and badly 



THROUGH MANUAL TRAINING 187 

directed daubs from my brush, I returned it to him, 
and with it I paid him the compKment his work 
deserved — a compKment withheld at first because 
I could not know sooner how well he was doing. 
In these illustrations we may see one of the moral 
effects which come from any sort of manual or in- 
dustrial effort. It gives a basis for appreciation, 
for sympathy, for understanding, and for rightly 
evaluating the efforts of those who labor in these 
lines. The conflicts between capital and labor, 
between employers and employees, between pro- 
ducers and consumers in almost all lines of pro- 
duction, are unduly aggravated and heated ofttimes 
because the training and experience of these two 
classes have been too disparate to give a basis for 
the mutual sympathy, understanding, and tolerance 
necessary for harmony, cooperation, teamwork, and 
concessions that ought to be made to just demands 
at times. Inter-school athletics has reached a stage 
of development in many communities that permits 
a team and its rooters to cheer a splendid play made 
by the opposing team. A similar basis for un- 
derstanding the merits of an industrial game will 
make it easier for every one to commend, and in 
other appropriate ways suitably reward, the ex- 
cellent work done by the worker in whatever line 
it is exhibited. 

I confess that I feel like taking off my hat to 
thousands of skilled workers whose work makes it 
possible for me to enjoy comforts and conveniences 
that I could never secure without their services. 
This applies to the carpenters who built my house ; 
the cabinet-makers who made its furniture; the 



1 88 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

man who sits in the cab with his hand on the throttle, 
master of the monster locomotive that pulls the 
train bearing me to a distant city while I sleep with 
a feeling of security not much less than I have when 
I retire for the night in my own home. 

Moral obligation of self-support. — In vocational 
and even prevocational courses there is still another 
distinctly moral aim that may be realized. It lies 
in the courses wherein the student discovers his 
native bent, or having discovered it, continues to 
specialize as a student to increase his efficiency in 
his chosen career as a breadwinner. Among the 
most important of man's obligations is that of sup- 
porting himself and his family. The choice of a 
life career and the training for it are parts of the 
duty of each one of us. It is immoral to be a 
social parasite. Economic independence made pos- 
sible through a rational choice of a vocation and 
adequate training for it, is a prime consideration 
for good citizenship. Culture, enjoyment of leisure 
along aesthetic Knes, and mental discipline as such, 
all have their place in the scheme of one's training, 
but more fundamental than these is the duty of 
self-support, of finding one's place in the world of 
workers. The world perhaps owes every man a 
living, and it stands ready to pay the debt, but 
only on condition that he make proper return in 
service of some sort which the world needs. It 
is, therefore, no mean type of morality which a 
student is acquiring when he learns, in school or 
out, those mechanical arts, that skill and technique, 
and those habits which can be made to function 
readily when he takes his place as a bread-winner. 



THROUGH MANUAL TRAINING 189 

Labor a fortification against vice. — Not only is 
this a virtue m itself, but it is a bulwark which 
tortihes Its possessor against the danger of many 
other vices It is proverbial that the Devil finds 
something for idle hands to do. There are tempta- 
tions enough for any young man, to be sure, but they 
are infinitely multiplied for the one who is not 
anchored m hfe by some worthy calHng that demands 
most ot his time and strength and talents during 
most of his waking hours. He is fortunate, there- 
tore. It he has been not merely educated in school, 
but educated for something, so that he can promptly 
hnd his place m the industrial or professional world 
on leaving school, without the opportunity or the 
temptation to sow a crop of wild oats while he has 
nothing else to do. The ranks of gamblers, drunk- 
ards, tramps, thieves, and other parasitical classes 
are recruited, for the most part, from men who not 
only have no worthier job, but no trade and no pro- 
fession whereby they can make an honest living 
Any adequate training in morality, therefore, must 
include training in industry, and ought to increase 
a child s feehng that labor is dignified, honorable, 
and even obhgatory for all men and women. It is 
important because it lessens vice, but is in itself a 
positive virtue. 

Service as the chief duty of man. — Training 
boys and girls to work is training them for service 
which must finally be regarded as the chief duty of 
man. The Great Teacher was able to say, " I 
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister." 
On more than one occasion he taught that who would 
be great in the kingdom must become a servant. 



I90 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Paul, in writing to one of the churches of the day, 
acknowledged that he labored night and day that 
he " might not be chargeable to any of you." Not 
to learn to do well some portion of the world's work 
is to miss one of the greatest moral obHgations rest- 
ing upon us. Any manual training, therefore, using 
the term in its broad sense, that helps a boy or 
girl to discover the field in which he can work most 
happily and contentedly, and any later training 
that helps him to do that work most helpfully and 
effectively, is to be esteemed as a means of dis- 
charging this moral obligation. 

Agriculture, the mechanic arts, commercial sub- 
jects, various phases of engineering, the household 
arts — all have a large place in the schools of the 
day because they have this combined moral and 
vocational trend. One of the suggestive and help- 
ful books ^ recently written for teachers is devoted 
to the very practical subject of vocational training 
and guidance, but the presupposition of nearly every 
chapter is that vocational guidance is fundamentally 
moral guidance as well. And so it is. Parents 
and teachers who succeed in guiding children into 
the most appropriate channels for life-work are com- 
pelled to consider the moral aspects of this work, 
and at the same time they have a right to think of 
a proper vocation as itself one of the moral assets of 
its possessor. 

1 Davis, Vocational and Moral Guidance. 



THROUGH MANUAL TRAINING 



Questions and Suggestions 



191 



1. Show the psychological basis for manual and in- 
dustrial courses in school. Can courses in reading, 
history, geography, and mathematics be made to utilize 
so fully the instinct for construction and self-expression ? 
Why? 

2. Discuss the sociological need of such courses in 
school today as compared with their need a generation 
ago. Enumerate the activities in which boys and girls 
formerly had a daily part in the home and upon the farm, 
and show whether you see in them an excuse for more 
or less attention to manual courses in school today. 

3. From the following list of habits and ideals, show 
what ones a teacher might reasonably expect to set up 
or modify in his pupils through a manual course : (a) obe- 
dience ; (J?) initiative ; (c) accuracy ; (d) neatness ; 
(e) cooperation; (/) industry; (g) sympathy. Has it 
been your observation and experience that any or all of 
these habits do result from such courses ? What can you 
say of the relation of such habits and ideals to character ? 

4. Make a list of the leading men and women of your 
city and community — those most active and influential 
in industrial, civic, moral, and religious lines. What do 
you know of their early training ? To what can you 
ascribe their leadership ? 

5. Should the girl from a wealthy home be expected 
to take any course in domestic science or art ? Justify 
your answer. If a boy resolves early in life to become 
a professional man, ought he take any manual or indus- 
trial course in school .? Why ? 

6. Account for the influence of the school at Tuskegee 
upon the character of the negro. What influence has this 
school had upon pubHc school education in the United 
States ? 



192 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

7. What are the leading difFerences between the peni- 
tentiaries of the past and the reformatories of today ? 
Compare the results achieved in the two types of institu- 
tions. Discuss the aphorism, "We must not only be 
good, but be good for something." 

8. Upon what theory of the function of the school is 
based the growing custom of giving credit for home 
work ? What is the effect of this practice upon the 
child so credited .? List the kinds of work for which 
credit is given in various schools. 

9. What can the school do to dignify labor in the 
mind of pupils .? Read Lucy Larcom's An Idyl of Work, 
especially the preface. (See also "Working Together," 
Book IV, of the Edson-Laing Readers.) 

10. Comment on William Hawley Smith's definition 
of an educated man: "An educated man is one who is 
on to his job." 

11. Comment upon the following: "It is better to 
have a boy of nine or ten make a rickety, unsteady, 
likely-to-fall-any-minute table because he wanted to 
make it, than a whole wilderness of beautifully made 
miter joints, dovetails, T-joints, and the like, just be- 
cause they happened to be a part of the regular schedule 
of manual exercises." 



References for Further Reading 

Alderman, L. R. : School Credit for Home Work. Houghton 

Mifflin Co. 
Bates, R. Charles : Possibilities of Manual Training for Moral 

Ends, in Proceedings N. E. A. 1901, pp. 270-275. 
Davenport, Eugene : Education for Efficiency, chapter iv. 

D. C. Heath and Co. 
Dewey, John: Democracy in Education, chapter xiii. Mac- 

millan Co. 
HiRSCH, Emil G. : The Moral Aspect of Industrial Education 

Educational Review, Vol. XXXV, pp. 449-454. 



CHAPTER XIV 

MORAL TRAINING THROUGH PLAY, PHYSICAL 
CULTURE, GAMES, AND ATHLETICS 

Attitude of the Puritans. — Happily for children 
there are few people who still question the value of 
play. Our stern puritanical ancestors may have 
failed to distinguish between play and laziness. Many 
of them looked upon both as the enemies of work and 
of religion, and regarded both as impious in origin, 
and baneful in their effects upon character. In 
colonial times, especially, children found it difficult 
to give wholesome expression to the play instinct 
since their elders were convinced that it was deviHsh 
in its genesis, and an evidence of an unregenerate 
nature. Since those times there has been a gradual 
growth in tolerance and liberality of belief and 
practice upon the part of the church. 

Influence of the new psychology. — Within the 
last twenty-five years this growth has been quick- 
ened by the development of a " new psychology " 
which is most strikingly shown in the new psychology 
of childhood and adolescence. The modern psy- 
chologist has taught ministers, parents, and teachers 
to look for the springs of a child's conduct and the 
explanation of his behavior in those instincts, im- 
pulses, and racial tendencies that date back to the 
childhood of the race. Play viewed in this Hght is 

193 



194 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

no longer to be thought of as a pathological distor- 
tion of religion, but a biological necessity, as beauti- 
ful as it is natural and proper. No matter whether 
it is explained, as Spencer did it, by the " surplus 
energy ^' theory, or by the more commonly ac- 
cepted theory of Groos that it is nature's way of 
preparing young animals, including children, for 
their more serious duties of adult life, it is a phe- 
nomenon to be utilized and not to be inhibited as 
something inherently evil in itself. 

Teachings of Plato. — Plato's scheme of educa- 
tion is set forth in considerable detail in his Republic, 
in which music for the soul and gymnastics for the 
body are advocated ; but he anticipated present-day 
beliefs when, in Book IV, he wrote, 

"Our youth should be educated in a stricter rule from 
the first, for if education becomes lawless, and the youths 
themselves become lawless, they can never grow up into 
well-conducted and meritorious citizens. . . . And the 
education must begin with their plays. The spirit of 
law must be imparted to them in music, and the spirit 
of order, attending them in all their actions, will make 
them grow ; and if there be any part of the state which 
has fallen down, will raise it up again." 

Aristotle's Politics has this to say of the first few 
years of a child's life (to the age of five) : 

"No demand should be made upon the child for study 
or labor lest its growth be impeded ; and there should be 
sufficient motion to prevent the limbs from being inactive. 
This can be secured, among other ways, by amusement, 
but the amusement should not be vulgar or tiring or 
riotous. The directors of education, as they are termed, 



THROUGH PLAY AND PHYSICAL CULTURE 195 

should be careful what tales or stones the children hear, 
for the sports of children are designed to prepare the way 
for the business of later life, and should be for the most 
part imitations of the occupations which they will here- 
after pursue in earnest." 

Quintilian commented upon the importance of 
relaxation and play in the following paragraph : 

"Yet some relaxation is to be allowed to all; not only 
because there is nothing that can bear perpetual labour 
(and even those things that are without sense and Hfe 
are unbent by alternate rest, as it were, in order that they 
may preserve their vigour), but because appHcation to 
learning depends on the will, which cannot be forced. 
Boys, accordingly, when re-invigorated and refreshed, 
bring more sprightliness to their learning, and a more 
determined spirit, which for the most part spurns com- 
pulsion. Nor will play in boys displease me; it is also 
a sign of vivacity ; and I cannot expect that he| who is 
always dull and spiritless will be of an eager disposition 
in his studies, when he is indifferent even to that excite- 
ment which is natural to his age. There must however 
be bounds set to relaxation, lest the refusal of it beget 
an aversion to study, or too much indulgence in it a 
habit of idleness. There are some kinds of amusement, 
too, not unserviceable for sharpening the wits of boys, 
as when they contend with each other by proposing all 
sorts of questions in turn. In their plays, also, their 
moral dispositions show themselves more plainly, sup- 
posing that there is no age so tender that it may not 
readily learn what is right and wrong; and the tender 
age may best be formed at a time when it is ignorant 
of dissimulation, and most willingly submits to instruc- 
tors ; for you may break, sooner than mend, that which 
has hardened into deformity. A child is as early as 



196 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

possible, therefore, to be admonished that he must do 
nothing too eagerly, nothing dishonestly, nothing without 
self-control ; and we must always keep in mind the 
maxim of Virgil, Adeo in teneris consuescere multum est, 
*0f so much importance is the acquirement of habit in 
the young.'" ^ 

Influence of FroebeL — Froebel was perhaps the 
first great educator to appreciate the educative pos- 
sibiHties of what we now know as the play instinct, 
though the good he saw in it for the training of the 
kindergarten child is now generally admitted to be 
little less deserving of a place in the scheme of edu- 
cation for older children and even adults. Of this 
truth the most obvious witness is the growth in num- 
bers and popularity of gymnasiums, playgrounds, 
and play apparatus. Cities and schools spend large 
sums of money to this end ; employ supervisors of 
play, athletic coaches, and recreational directors ; 
close busy streets to traffic in the neighborhood 
of schools certain hours of the day in some cities ; 
and sometimes buy and tear down costly business 
houses to provide parks and playgrounds for chil- 
dren. Our conception of the place of play in life 
has so far changed, that one well-known writer ^ as- 
serts even that " the man who does not play in 
some way soon degenerates." 

With these preliminary general statements as a 
background, let us note the bearing of play upon 
the moral life of the child. 

Play and a physical basis for morality. — It 
tends to give a better physical basis for a sound 

1 Institutes of Oratory, chapter iii. 

2 Kirkpatrick, The Fundamentals of Child Study, p. 151. 



THROUGH PLAY AND PHYSICAL CULTURE 197 

morality. The development of a physiological psy- 
chology has brought with it a new appreciation of 
the relation of morality and even religion itself to 
physical health. There is abundant clinical evi- 
dence of perversions of moral conduct on the part 
of children that were due to physical causes, and of 
moral reformation effected by a proper application 
of the surgeon's knife or a building up of the physical 
condition of the sufferer. Every one knows how 
closely related is pessimism to poor health, and how 
difficult it is for a dyspeptic rightly to evaluate the 
motives and acts of his fellow men. One need not 
be so badly afflicted as Job was to feel tempted to 
curse God and die, even if one inhibits the impulse. 
On the other hand, it is easiest to say with Brown- 
ing that 

" God's in his heaven — 
All's right with the world ! " 

when one is feeling the buoyancy of abounding health 
and Hfe. This relationship is well illustrated in the 
biblical story of Elijah, who lay down under the 
juniper tree, wearied and fatigued from his lonely 
travel, and crushed by the thought of his persecu- 
tions and the destruction of the Lord's prophets. 
In this condition it was easy for him to yield to the 
wish to die. It was then that his attention was 
arrested by an angel who bade him rise up and eat 
the provisions he had brought him. He did this 
and then slept a few hours. Awaking again, he 
once more ate and drank as bidden, and thus re- 
freshed with food, drink, and sleep, he was able to 
resume his journey and ultimately to hear the 
reassuring voice of the Lord once more. 



198 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Now play is a physical tonic. Being instinctive, 
it is spontaneous, interesting, and exhilarating. It 
is indulged in by children with an abandon and a 
zest that seldom characterize work. It is almost 
always suited to the development and the powers of 
the one playing, since it is prompted from within 
and is done for its own sake. Work, on the other 
hand, is more likely to be done as a result of an in- 
fluence from without the worker, and for the sake 
of something ulterior which can be gained by the 
work. For this reason it may unduly tax the 
strength of the worker, or with a slighter stimulus, 
it may not sufficiently engage his powers, to be of 
physical benefit. But in the case of play, the de- 
gree of energy used and the state of mind accom- 
panying the act are both such as to result in a 
maximum of physical benefit in a minimum length 
of time. The result of free play, therefore, is al- 
most always a promotion of bodily functions and an 
increase of bodily vigor which we are justified in 
assuming as a foundation for a healthy morality. 
In play, a child is not only promoting his health and 
his more general bodily functions, but he is thereby 
developing certain brain centers which make pos- 
sible the completion of his sensori-motor circuits. 
In this way he comes into possession of a better 
neural basis for both intellectual and moral activities 
and in turn makes of his body a readier and more 
responsive instrument with which to express his 
mental and moral purposes. In subnormal children 
there is almost always a poor coordination of move- 
ments, and an awkwardness that is indicative of 
feeble control of accessory muscles. Free play. 



THROUGH PLAY AND PHYSICAL CULTURE 199 

physical exercises, and gymnastics can not supply 
the nerve centers that are deficient in structure in 
such cases, but they can develop their capacity to 
function, and in so doing increase the intellectual 
keenness and agility of the child. Even a child's 
self-respect is increased as he comes into possession 
of his powers as an individual. His confidence in 
himself grows with the development of his own 
personahty. Every young child discovers himself 
in large measure through the medium of play, and 
in so doing prepares the way for his later develop- 
nient as a social being, for one needs to recognize 
hiniself as an individual before he can become a 
socialized unit of a larger group. 

James L. Hughes, in an address before the National 
Education Association, 1896, on " Physical Train- 
mg As a Factor in Character Building," said in part : 

"Physical culture influences character by making the 
body more definite, more forceful, more graceful, and 
more free. The improved attitude of the body reacts 
on the character in two ways. The functions of the 
vital organs are more fully performed because they are 
more free, and the character therefore gains in force; 
and the consciousness of erectness and poise brings with 
it an added consciousness of self-faith, dignity, and in- 
tegrity. The body becomes in time an external mani- 
festation of the character. The motions of the arms, 
the step, the habitual attitude, the poise of the head, 
even the way the fingers and thumbs are used or held, 
reveal to the experienced observer the character behind 
them. To a certain extent it is equally true that the 
body by its attitudes and its modes of action influences 
the mind. Body and mind are so intimately interrelated 
that the one necessarily reacts on the other. Make the 



200 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

sweep of the arms more free and you widen the conception 
of freedom, and register the new conception on the brain 
and nerve centers by effecting changes in their develop- 
ment, their structure, or their paths of action to corre- 
spond with the new movements they have been required 
to direct. Change that boy's step from that shuffling 
gait, and make a definite free step habitual, and you have 
helped to change his character. That poor boy whose 
knees bend weakly as he stands, lacks moral fiber as well 
as physical definiteness. Straighten his knees and you 
have done a good deal to straighten and define his char- 
acter." 

Play as a revelation of character. — In their 
play at home and school, children are more likely to 
exhibit their real selves, with whatever of moral 
strength and weakness they have, than in the class- 
room. In the latter there is a certain artificiality 
that 'is unavoidable. There is a standard of conduct 
to which children are required to conform, and the 
teacher may not always know how foreign it is to 
the real bent and will of some of them. If a child 
is selfish, unkind, cruel, or vulgar, these qualities 
will be exhibited upon the playground. A child is 
not likely to pose here. As Everett says, " There 
is, perhaps, no time in the world when a person shows 
himself for just what he is as truly as he does when he 
is amusing himself. Then he has no rules to observe ; 
he is off his guard, and whatever of good or bad there 
is in him is likely to show itself." ^ But every such 
exhibition is the teacher's opportunity. She must 
find appropriate w^ays of dealing with children, what- 
ever their individual weakness or moral needs. 

* Ethics for Young People. 



THROUGH PLAY AND PHYSICAL CULTURE 201 

Through the development of group standards of moral- 
ity that will rebuke the immoral child, through iso- 
lation, through punishment, through interviews that 
will attempt to show the ugliness of the acts she 
condemns, and to set up a better standard and ideal 
of behavior, she will minister to individual children 
as they need. She will do it persistently, in charity, 
and without fear of possible unpleasant consequences. 
She will do it, too, mindful of the fact that there are 
likely to be repetitions of the fault she is laboring to 
correct, for habits, dispositions, and attitudes are 
not permanently and instantly changed in a pupil, 
even when he is led to will with the teacher to have 
them so changed. 

The playground a cradle of democracy. — The 
playground is the real cradle of democracy for chil- 
dren. Here they quickly learn to respect the 
rights of others in their miniature world. Often a 
child comes to school from a home in which he is 
petted and spoiled by overindulgent parents who 
prevent friction by uniformly yielding to his im- 
perious will. But on the school playground this is 
very properly changed. Such a child soon comes 
into conflict with others as commanding as he and 
sometimes with better right. Leadership is re- 
spected, but it must be leadership based upon quali- 
ties which the group can endorse. The will of the 
majority prevails. The pupil who sets himself in 
opposition to it soon loses caste and is whipped into 
line sooner or later by a social ostracism which the 
playground knows well how to inflict. 

Teamwork and moral training. — But it is in 
the " teamwork " of the upper grades and the early 



202 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

adolescent years that the playground has its largest 
opportunity to give moral training. No game can 
be played successfully until the players learn to 
subordinate themselves as individuals to the group 
composing the team. Cooperation is required. 
The honor of the team, or the reputation of the 
school, is at stake. The individual must be will- 
ing to go into eclipse, if need be. He must occa- 
sionally make a " sacrifice hit " that somebody else 
may make a " home run." He must play the game 
and play it *' fair." Unnecessary and intentional 
personal fouls not only discredit the player who 
makes them, but react to the lessening of his team's 
chances to win. I can not do better here than to 
quote the words of a great teacher who sees the 
spiritualizing influence of the school as a social 
unit carried from the classroom to the playground. 
" There," he says, " a boy learns to play fair, ac- 
customs himself to that greatest of social ties, 
Vesprit de corps. Throughout life a man needs con- 
tinually to merge his own interests in those of a 
group. He must act as the father of a family, an 
operative in a factory, a voter of Boston, an Ameri- 
can citizen, a member of an engine company, union, 
church, or business firm. His own small concerns 
are taken up into these larger ones, and devotion 
to them is not felt as self-sacrifice. A preparation 
for such ennoblement is laid in the sports of child- 
hood. What does a member of the football team 
care for battered shins or earth-scraped hands .? 
His side has won, and his own gains and losses are 
forgotten. Soon his team goes forth against an 
outside team, and now the honor of the whole school 



THROUGH PLAY AND PHYSICAL CULTURE 



203 



is in his keeping. What pride is his ! As he puts 
on his uniform, he strips off his isolated personality 
and stands forth as the trusted champion of an 
institution." ^ 

Moral and hygienic habits fostered. — Other moral 
values are coupled with this in insistence upon a 
reasonable academic and scholarly standard as a 
requirement for membership in a contesting team; 
in the weeks or months of practice and drill in 
preparation for a contest ; in the regulation of the 
players' diet that they may become physically fit 
and efficient; in prohibiting their use of tobacco 
and any sort of drink whose use is known to result 
in unsteady nerves and lowered vitality. An un- 
solved problem, as yet, is how to make this sort of 
training " carry over " and become the rule of life 
after the practice season is over for the players; 
but the moral values of such training are not to be 
despised even if the regulations imposed by it for 
a season are not voluntarily imposed and maintained 
later on. 

Perhaps the greatest test of the moral value of 
competitive games and inter-school athletics is the 
spirit and ideals fostered by them. If they result 
in a mastering passion to win at any price, they de- 
serve condemnation. It is a part of the moral 
training of any team and of any school to learn 
how to accept defeat. There is more honor in an 
honorable defeat than in a dishonorable victory. 
Principals, teachers, captains, and coaches can not 
too strongly stress this fact with their players and 

1 Palmer, "Essay on Moral Instruction in the Schools," in The 

Teacher. 



204 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

schools. Clean athletics both reflects and promotes 
a high type of morality. Any other kind is so im- 
moral in its effects upon the players that it can not 
be defended at all. A team that can not go from home 
and refrain from rowdyism, profanity, and drinking 
would better be disbanded. No victory is a suf- 
ficient compensation for the stain which such con- 
duct gives. 

Even war has its rules which civilized nations 
engaged in it are bound to respect. Recently a 
great nation has brought upon itself the condem- 
nation of the civilized world by a disregard for the 
regulations thus imposed. Not less surely does a 
team in school incur the displeasure and the dis- 
respect of other teams if it violates the rules of the 
game which it is assumed all teams will follow. 
" A decent respect for the opinions of mankind " 
is an impelling force in making individuals and 
teams as well as nations conform to moral law in 
their behavior. 

Supervised playgrounds a necessity. — As teach- 
ers and parents come to appreciate the educative 
value of play, supervision of play at school becomes 
the pohcy of schools more and more, and supervised 
municipal playgrounds are maintained in growing 
numbers through the long summer vacations. The 
advantages of supervision are twofold. First, it 
makes possible a better distribution of the privileges 
of the playground. Younger children are given their 
opportunity to play appropriate games without 
molestation by thoughtless and sometimes selfish 
older ones. To secure this result it is necessary for 
principals and teachers to assign different portions 



THROUGH PLAY AND PHYSICAL CULTURE 205 

of the school grounds to the diifrerent grades or age 
groups, and still further to designate certain portions 
for girls and others for boys. There is an increasing 
tendency, too, where grounds are small, for dif- 
ferent groups or grades of pupils to be given their 
recess or play period at different times of the day. 
One group, e.g.y may use the grounds from ten to 
ten-fifteen ; another, from ten-fifteen to ten-thirty ; 
and still another, if necessary, for the quarter of an 
hour following. 

The second advantage is that the supervisor can 
really teach children zuhat to play as well as how to 
play it. Though they have the play instinct, with- 
out guidance it may express itself in relatively un- 
satisfactory lines, just as the collecting instinct is 
no guarantee that pupils will busy themselves with 
profitable kinds of collecting unless their activities 
are guided into proper channels. 

But a more obvious advantage resulting from the 
presence of a teacher or supervisor on the play- 
ground is that of detecting the bully, the quarrel- 
some, profane, vulgar, or other child who may ex- 
hibit qualities that tend to lower the standards of 
the group. " It is true," as Colvin and Bagley put 
it, " that the cheat will be detected, and it is true 
that under certain conditions a much more effective 
punishment will be meted out to him by his fellows 
than the cleverest supervisor could devise. But these 
conditions do not always govern the situation. If 
the cheat happens to have the quaHties of leadership 
he will infect with his virus a goodly following among 
his companions ; and the evil, which is bad enough 
when individually expressed, runs riot through the 



2o6 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

entire social group. It has been found that un- 
supervised playgrounds in our large cities are veri- 
table hotbeds of vice, and the same may be true 
of unsupervised recesses and noon intermissions in 
the school. Where large numbers of children con- 
gregate, the welfare of society demands that a re- 
sponsible adult be present, with full authority to 
check in the bud the first expression of a dangerous 
tendency." ^ 

Questions and Suggestions 

1. State the two attitudes toward children's play and 
give reasons for your belief in the correctness of one of 
them. 

2. Discuss the views of Plato, Aristotle, and Quintilian 
concerning the value of play. How far in advance of 
their ideas are we in theory today .? In practice .? 

3. How are the teachings of Froebel modifying the 
practice of schools today ? Is his influence extending 
above the kindergarten ? Illustrate. 

4. What useful suggestion comes to teachers from the 
big place given in Young Men's Christian Associations 
to the gymnasium and all its physical activities ? Why 
do busy business and professional men give up a portion 
of their time to golf or other forms of recreation .? 

5. In what respect does the playground offer a better 
opportunity than the schoolroom for ministering to the 
moral side of a child's life ? 

6. Cite instances that have come under your personal 
observation showing the playground as the cradle of 
democracy. Think of its place in democratizing children 
of foreign birth. 

7. What can the school do to foster "clean sport" } 

^ Human, Behavior, p. 158. 



THROUGH PLAY AND PHYSICAL CULTURE 207 

8. Is there sufficient attention given to the athletic 
needs of all the children in the schools today ? 

9. What are the advantages of supervised playgrounds ? 
The disadvantages, if any ? 

10. What have you done to lead your board or your 
community to enlarge your playground if it is too small ? 
To equip it with needed playground apparatus ? Does 
a rural school need play apparatus ? Give reasons for 
your opinion. 

11. What suggestion to teachers and parents do you 
find in these words from Jane Addams : "Much vice is 
merely a love for pleasure" ? 

12. In what sense was the Duke of Wellington right 
when he said the Battle of Waterloo was won on the play- 
grounds at Eton ? 



References for Further Reading 

Addams, Jane : The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets. 

Macmillan Company. 
FoRBusH, William Byron : The Boy Problem. The Pilgrim 

Press. 
Griggs, Edward Howard : Moral Education. B. W. Huebsch. 
Johnson, G. E. : Education by Plays and Games. Ginn & Co. 
King, Irving : Education for Social Efficiency, chapter vii. 

D. Appleton & Co. 
Klapper, Paul : Principles of Educational Practice, chapter v. 

D. Appleton & Co. 
QuiNTiLiAN : Institutes of Oratory. 



CHAPTER XV 

MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH VOCATIONAL 
DIRECTION 

Modern schools train for life work. — The best 
schools are endeavoring to set boys and girls to 
thinking of their life work even while in the grammar 
grades. The most highly developed junior high 
schools of the present day have come into existence 
in response to the demand, in part at least, for a 
richer variety of school experiences that would do 
one of two things for their pupils — either give 
training that will better fit some of them for their 
immediate practical needs if they must get into the 
world of industry at an early age, or give them a 
better opportunity to discover their special talents 
and native bent so that they make their later school 
work minister more pointedly to that end. 

Vocational direction in Grand Rapids schools. — 
Various means have been utilized to achieve the 
same general result. Grand Rapids, Michigan, 
e.g., has long been famous for its work in English, 
having a distinct vocational trend. The reading 
assigned and the reports of the students in class, 
whether oral or written, are all such as give desirable 
information concerning a large number of vocations 
and caUings. If one student makes a special study 

208 



THROUGH VOCATIONAL DIRECTION 209 

of cabinet-making, another of millinery, another 
of nursing, another of civil engineering, another of 
salesmanship, one of landscape gardening, one of 
plumbing, another of printing, and so on, the report 
of each is listened to with eager attention by the 
whole class, for each one is making a contribution 
growing out of reading and investigation that others 
have not been privileged to do. 

Basic moral requirements. — But whether this 
vocational work is done as a part of the English 
course, or as a distinct course, as it h in the Junior 
High School of Decatur, any detailed and analytical 
study of the various callings of men and women will 
reveal that there are certain basic moral principles 
underlying and common to them all. The greater 
and more widespread the study, the clearer the lesson 
to the student that there is no permanent and desir- 
able success in any kind of business that can be 
built up apart from character, and no kind so humble 
in its nature or so technical in its demands that it 
can stand without a moral foundation. Many 
parents endeavor to teach this very lesson to their 
own children, but when pupils learn it through 
their study of the lives of successful men and women, 
through a first-hand contact with business and pro- 
fessional men to whom they are directed for informa- 
tion, or from the letters of prospective employers 
emphasizing the traits desired in the boy or girl 
wanted, the parents' teaching has the sort of reen- 
forcement it needs to make it effective to the largest 
degree. 

Temperance is a virtue that can be urged upon 
many grounds, but boys who are about to find a 



2IO MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

place in the industrial world will find in the demands 
of industry one of their strongest motives for its 
cultivation. There are scores of callings absolutely 
closed to the man who indulges in the use of alcoholic 
drinks, chief among them being railroad positions. 
But the shops, factories, stores, and offices that will 
not employ a boy or man who is intemperate are 
numbered by the thousand. 

Truthfulness and honesty are easily discovered by 
the student to be essential in every situation. A 
dishonest man is not wanted in any reputable busi- 
ness. Even promptness in paying one's bills and 
meeting his obligations goes a long way towards 
establishing one's reputation and insuring his success. 
There is no form of security that reaches farther than 
character in the conduct of business. The man 
who habitually makes his word as good as his bond 
is the man who can get credit when he needs it. 

Courtesy is another virtue which may easily be 
shown to have an important place in most callings 
and professions. There are clerks and saleswomen 
so poHte and courteous that they make shopping a 
delight for the customers and patrons of their store. 
There are others so ungracious and so inconsiderate 
of both their employer's and his patrons' interests 
that one may leave their counter with a resolution 
not to visit the store again unless compelled to do so. 
A certain city has three important railroads connect- 
ing it with Chicago, and the train service, hours of 
departure, fare, and time required to reach the 
latter city are almost identical. But there is an 
agent in one of these three offices so superior to the 
others in courtesy that scores of people uniformly 



THROUGH VOCATIONAL DIRECTION 21 1 

choose his road for making the trip. His courtesy 
is Uterally worth hundreds, if not thousands, of 
dollars to his employers annually. The pupils in 
any class, when set to thinking along this hne, can 
give numerous illustrations of the same general sort. 

The habit of smoking, and smoking cigarettes 
particularly, is one that is under social condemnation 
in so many quarters, that this fact may be used 
with boys as one of the most effective arguments 
against it. A boy may think what he will about the 
innocence of the cigarette habit. He may honestly 
beheve that his parents are unduly concerned about 
him, and that they are prone to exaggerate the evils 
of his habit; but when he learns that niany em- 
ployers will not hire a boy who smokes cigarettes, 
he has a piece of valuable information that directly 
relates itself to his habits on the one hand and to his 
occupational life on the other. 

Punctuality, fidelity, dependaUeness, industrious- 
ness — these are other moral qualities easily dis- 
covered to be among one's assets, whatever his 
calling. Curtain lectures upon the value of these 
virtues may not be very powerful agents in estab- 
lishing them, but when a boy learns of their relation 
to his success out in the world, they are at once 
invested with a sense of reahty and importance that 
they did not have before. 

Professional ethics. — But besides these moral 
prerequisites, common to almost all successful 
caUings, there are a number of virtues essential to 
success that are more or less peculiar to any given 
calling. For example, the ethics of the medical 
profession requires that a doctor be willing to keep a 



212 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

professional secret. He must not gossip about his 
patients. It is almost as inexcusable in him if he 
discusses matters pertaining to his patients' diseases 
as it would be for a priest to reveal to others secrets 
that come to him via the confessional. In Hke 
manner, secretarial positions all require a dis- 
creet silence at times. One's secretary must be 
entrusted with matters which can not be publicly 
discussed. A secretary who has not learned how 
mischievous her tongue may be is not fitted for her 
position, whatever her other good qualities. 

A teacher, finally, need not be superior to other 
people in many respects, but she can not succeed 
in her calling unless she has a high degree of patience 
and of sympathy. Lacking these she ought not 
try to teach. One may work upon wood or iron 
and do no violence to these materials even if largely 
lacking in these two respects, but teaching young im- 
pressionable lives calls for an hourly exercise of both 
patience and sympathy, and a lack of them upon the 
teacher's part must inevitably be to the hurt of the 
child. 

Initiative and self-reliance may be shown to be 
valuable qualities which contribute largely to one's 
success in any field of endeavor. But in certain 
positions they are indispensable. Any kind of 
supervisory, managerial, executive, or administrative 
work demands the presence of this virtue. Assuming 
new responsibihty always tends to develop such 
latent powers as one may have. But some people 
are born to be leaders ; others may not do more 
than be good followers, and do faithfully and well 
that which is prescribed and outhned for them. 



THROUGH VOCATIONAL DIRECTION 213 

Industry, persistent, everlasting work, is easily 
discovered to be a moral asset to the youth who would 
succeed. Lives of successful men nearly all show 
that their success was builded upon industry as one 
of the cornerstones. Even Edison has denied that 
inspiration has been as big a factor in his in- 
ventions as perspiration. The most valuable type 
of genius is the genius for hard work, long weary 
hours of it. 

Not long ago I rode for some hours with a banker. 
Our conversation was soon directed towards another 
banker, a mutual friend of ours, president of an 
institution of considerable importance. My travel- 
ing companion related how this mutual banker 
friend had always been a hustler, a worker, a leader 
in whatever engaged him. " As a young man on 
the farm," said he, " he was the first one of his 
neighborhood to husk a hundred bushels of corn in 
a day. People used to come for miles around to see 
him do it." Examples can be multiplied in any 
field — the farm, factory, law office, teaching pro- 
fession, pulpit, commercial enterprise — to show 
that industry counts, that laziness can not succeed. 

In the published proceedings of the N. E. A. for 
1916 is a paper presented at the Detroit meeting of 
the Department of Superintendence by Milton 
Fairchild, upon *' The National Morality Codes 
Competition." In his paper he refers to, and quotes, 
*' The Code of Successful Workers," as formulated 
by the National Institution for Moral Instruction. 
Because it is an excellent summary of just such 
principles as we have discussed in this chapter, I 
quote the following paragraphs from it : 



214 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 



The Ethics of Work 

"This 'Code of Successful Workers' has been formu- 
lated from personal experience by many men and women 
who have achieved great success as workers. It presents 
their personal attitude toward their work, and reveals 
the sort of people they have striven to make of them- 
selves. It is true and reliable. It is offered as a means 
by which young people can learn the requirements which 
success in work imposes on them. Those who work by 
this code will find satisfaction, honor, and a good living 
in the world of work." 

The Code of Successful Workers 
Resolutions they make for themselves 

"i. / will respect all useful work and be courteous to the 
workers. Work of all kinds is essential to the success of 
the world, and benefits come to many from the service 
rendered by each honest worker. I will respect myself, 
therefore, when doing any useful work, and show respect 
for good work done by others. I will be courteous to 
all workers, regard their rights, and make life more 
agreeable for them when I can. 

" 2. / will know my work and have ambition to do it well, 
I will keep determined to succeed in work, to master 
some one line, to develop aptitude and gain skill. I 
will keep my mind concentrated on my work, and make 
work my chief interest. I will accumulate knowledge 
and experience. 

"3. / will take the initiative and develop executive ability, 
I will use business sense, have courage to make decisions 
and go ahead, be quick-witted, well balanced, and of good 
insight. I will be adaptable, and make all I can of my 
powers of invention. 



THROUGH VOCATIONAL DIRECTION 215 

*' 4. I will be industrious and willing. I will bring en- 
thusiasm to my work, be energetic and quick about it, 
and have endurance. I will be punctual, and always an 
attentive worker. I will be patient and persevering, 
and have system. I will keep myself in good health. 

"5. I will be honest and truthful. I will regard property 
rights, be economical of materials, and put in full time. 
I will be frank and honorable in my treatment of others, 
and preserve my personal integrity. 

" 6. / will educate myself into strong personality. I will 
develop force of character and have some worthy purpose 
in life. I will use my leisure wisely. I will be well in- 
formed, self-possessed, self-controlled, self-respecting, 
stable, open-minded and teachable, alert, observing. I 
will be quick to understand, and of good memory. I will 
use my imagination, and be ready to take responsibilities. 
I will gain knowledge of human nature, show sympathy, 
and take an interest in people. I will be friendly, cheer- 
ful, harmonious, and always tactful. 

" 7. / will be faithful to my work. I will hold to high 
ideals. I will be reliable, accurate, and careful. I will 
do my work right, for the people who need done the things 
I help to do. I will be thorough. I will keep my word. 

"8. / will be loyal. I will take pride in my firm or com- 
pany, factory, store, or farm. I will protect its interests, 
and help to make its work successful. I will be unselfish 
and obedient in my service to my superiors, and do good 
teamwork. In professional work, I will hold to the 
ethics of my profession. In an institution, I will be true 
to its purposes. I will be devoted to my home. I will 
be loyal to the people with whom I work. 

"9. / will be a gentleman — a lady. I will keep clean 
and neat, be pure and of good repute, courteous, and 
polite to all. I will form wise personal habits. 

^'The world does not owe me a living, but I am proud to 
make a good living for myself." 



2l6 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Conclusions. — In closing this brief discussion 
of the matter it would seem that the school, even the 
elementary school, must be charged with failing to 
do its duty if it permits its students to leave the 
upper grades without the opportunity to face some 
of the problems presented by the choice of a life 
career. Chief among them must be counted the 
moral problems. The expert psychologist may 
determine that the " reaction time " of some boys 
is such that they could never achieve success in 
a calling in which quick and accurate responses to 
stimuli are imperative. Common sense may serve 
to keep certain boys and girls out of vocations for 
which they are unfitted by nature. But the school 
must supplement the home in making clear to every 
pupil the moral foundations upon which success is 
built in all worthy callings. It must place a pre- 
mium upon industry, honesty, courtesy, neatness, 
initiative, self-control, memory, obedience, a proper 
humihty, punctuaHty, and temperance, and on speech 
that is always free from vulgarity and profanity, 
if not from false syntax, because the possession of 
these virtues multiplies the chances for success in 
life of any boy or girl in any calling, and the lack 
of any one of them as surely detracts from his chances 
to succeed. Earlier in his school life delinquency 
in any one of these lines may result in nothing worse, 
apparently, than a low grade in deportment, or a 
more or less severe punishment and loss of privilege 
in the school ; but in life beyond the school, a boy 
may quickly lose his position or fail to get another 
because he is morally short in any of the respects 
just named. There are weightier reasons for em- 



THROUGH VOCATIONAL DIRECTION 217 

bodying moral traits in one's life than the reason 
just offered; but it may well be doubted whether 
there is any motive more impeUing than the life- 
career motive as it can be made to serve for their 
cultivation in boys and girls of grammar school age. 

Questions and Suggestions 

1. Tell what has been done in your school, or schools 
under your observation, to give vocational direction to 
pupils. 

2. As you prepared for teaching in normal school or 
college, did you find that your knowledge of the moral 
as well as intellectual requirements of the profession had 
any effect upon your moral life ? If so, tell what. 

3. Report upon the Grand Rapids, Michigan, plan of 
vocational guidance. (This plan is followed there in the 
high school rather than the grades.) 

4. Prepare illustrations to use in your classes showing 
examples of success that have been due to unusual ex- 
hibitions of some one or more moral qualities. Cite 
instances of loss of position or failure to be promoted 
due to specific weaknesses of character. 

5. In mathematics a series of factors, of which zero is 
one, multiplied together, gives zero, it matters not how 
large or how numerous all the other factors are. Char- 
acter is a product with numerous factors entering Into 
its composition. Show the close parallelism between it 
and the mathematical law just stated. 

6. Of a number of students under observation, telling 
their choice of a life career, one said he was going to be 
a banker because he was **fond of figures" ; another that 
he proposed to be a lawyer because *'the world needs good 
lawyers"; a third that he expected to be a civil engineer 
because he loved outdoor life. Tell what additional vo- 
cational direction these boys needed. 



21 8 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

7. In what respect is one's moral nature strengthened 
by getting into the vocation he ought to follow ? How 
is it weakened by becoming an "industrial misfit" ? 

References for Further Reading 

Bloomfield, Meyer: Vocational Guidance of Youth. Hough- 
ton Mifflin Co. 

Davis, Jesse B. : Vocational and Moral Guidance. Ginn & Co. 

Dewey, John : Democracy in Education, chapter xxiii. Mac- 
millan Co. 

Johnston, Emma L. : Vocational Guidance Throughout the 
School Course, in Proceedings N. E. A. 1916, pp. 645-648. 

King, Irving : Education for Social Efficiency, chapters xii and 
XIII. D. Appleton & Co. 

Parsons, Frank : Choosing a Vocation. Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Spaulding, F. E. : Problems of Vocational Guidance, in Pro- 
ceedings N. E.A. 1915, pp. 331-335- 

Weaver, E. W. : Profitable Vocations for Girls. A. S. Barnes 
Co. 



CHAPTER XVI 
THE TEACHING OF THRIFT AS MORAL TRAINING 

"To earn what you can; spend what you must; give 
what you should, and save the rest — this is thrift." 

Reasons for teaching thrift. — For years it has 
been a matter of common remark that we are an 
extravagant people ; that we are a nation of good 
livers and free spenders ; that we are prodigal with 
our resources to the point of wastefulness. No 
people of Europe knows anything of the lavish and 
unregulated freedom we enjoy in this field. For 
generations there seemed to be no good reason why 
we should be otherwise. So long as forests were 
opposing the advance of the pioneer settler, and 
virgin prairies were more easily broken up than 
worn-out fields improved ; so long as mines seemed 
inexhaustible, and other natural resources appeared 
boundless; so long as our population was small in 
relation to the size of our country ; and so long as we 
were a rural people and not a nation of city dwellers : 
we did not feel the need of thrift that has long been 
felt and practiced by European countries. But times 
have changed in all these respects. Today our 
economic problems are among our most serious 
problems, and financial independence is for most of 

219 



220 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

us a more difficult thing to achieve than was poHtical 
independence for our Revolutionary fathers or 
religious freedom for our Colonial grandfathers. 
Never before in the history of the United States 
was it of so much importance that children learn 
the value of a dollar, the art of saving, and the no 
less difficult art of spending wisely. 

The duty of the school. — Such lessons might be 
taught in the home, but the fact remains that they 
are not adequately taught there. Civics, patriotism, 
scientific temperance, personal and social hygiene, 
manual arts, domestic economy — all might be 
taught in the home, in some homes, at least, but 
the schools undertook the task of supplementing 
the home teaching along these lines because they 
finally recognized that only by this means could 
*' all the children of all the people " get the training 
they need in these important fields. In like manner, 
and for the same reason, the duty of teaching thrift 
to every child is being urged upon the public schools 
today. We can not much longer refuse to hear this 
newcomer as it knocks for admission into our 
curriculum, and we ought not if we could. 

Relation of money to spiritual values. — It was 
said of old that " the love of money is the root of 
all evil," and so it may be still; but it is just as true 
that the possession of money is the basis upon which 
we build most that the world has pronounced good. 
Comfortably furnished homes, good schools, good 
roads, music, art, churches, everything that ministers 
to bodily comfort and to the culture of the spirit 
and soul of man in civilized society — all require 
money. It does not require much imagination to 



THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 221 

see that the individuals and the communities which 
are thriftless and penniless are invariably backward 
in their development along all these cultural and 
spiritual lines. 

Of course we are not foolish enough to claim that a 
rich man is necessarily rich in spirit ; or that a poor 
man may not be found, like Lazarus, resting upon the 
bosom of Abraham while Dives calls for a glass of 
water in Hades. But we may say that the kingdom 
of heaven and the kingdom of good things on earth 
are much more likely to be filled by those who learn 
to make, to save, and to use money aright, than by 
tramps, ne'er-do-wells, spendthrifts, beggars, and 
sluggards such as Solomon directed to go to the ant 
to " consider her ways and be wise." 

Thrift may, therefore, be assumed as a virtue 
which the schools are to teach. The question is, 
how can they do it .? What can teachers do with 
profit .? Of course no cut-and-dried rules can be 
laid down, but the few suggestions which follow 
in this chapter may help to open up the way. The 
thoughtful, resourceful teacher will find other helps 
no less useful. 

Motion-picture habit in relation to thrift. — To 
begin with, you may find the extent to which your 
pupils are addicted to the motion-picture habit. 
The amount of money that is spent by children in 
this sort of amusement is wholly out of proportion 
to the good there is in it, and equally disproportionate 
to their ability to spend money upon non-essentials. 
Children who might be excused for going to a motion 
picture show once every week or two not infrequently 
go two, three, and sometimes five or six evenings per 



222 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 



week. An inquiry addressed to eight hundred 
students in a high school not long ago, asking how 
often they go to the movies, brought replies which, 
when tabulated, show the following : 

78 students do not go to motion-picture shows 



'j'j " aver 


age I 


show 


pen 


month 


58 ;; 


2 


shows 


per 


month 


54 


3 








20 " 


4 








66 


5 








33 


6 








10 " 


7 








62 


8 








5 


9 








36 " 


10 








3 


II 








39 


12 








21 " ' 


15 








6 


16 








I " 


18 








17 


20 








I " * 


21 








I " 


24 








5 " 


25 








I " * 


26 








I " 


28 








5 , " 


, 30 









2 others go nearly every day. 

It will be seen that more than three hundred of 
the seven hundred thirty-one pupils replying, by 
their own admission, go to more than one show per 
week, while one hundred forty-five of them go more 
than twice per week, and several of them from three 
to seven shows per week. Wholly aside from the 



THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 223 

moral and intellectual values of the pictures, is the 
question whether so much time can be given to this 
sort of dissipation and amusement without detriment 
to the student's health and standing in his school 
subjects, to say nothing of the fact that nickels and 
dimes thus spent might be saved and later used for 
more valuable ends. In our cities can be found 
many parents who are willing to be rated as indigents 
that the public may furnish schoolbooks and supphes 
to their children, and yet from their meager income 
they will dole out nickels to their children to spend 
at movie shows, or for peanuts, candy, and other 
trifles. It is this condition, indeed, that makes it 
necessary for the schools to teach the lessons in 
thrift to children whose parents seem to have no 
conception of their obligation in this direction. 

Value of waste products. — Teachers can show in 
many fields of industry that the difference between 
success and failure consists in learning how to 
utilize waste products. Many hnes of business are 
conducted upon a very narrow margin of profit. 
Utilization of former waste products and volume of 
business are the two factors which together spell 
success in such cases. In the packing-house in- 
dustry, e.g., meat is the prime consideration, and 
was earher almost the only one. But hides for 
leather, hair for plaster, bones and entrails for 
fertihzer, blood for buttons, and hoofs for glue have 
come to be matters of great, even if secondary, 
importance. So little of waste is there in this in- 
dustry that there is a grim truth in the jest that the 
packers have learned to utilize everything about a 
pig except its squeal. 



224 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Crude oil, as it comes from the well, is thick and 
dark as sorghum. It looks very little like the 
refined high-grade coal oil and gasoHne so much in 
use everywhere. In the process of refining it many 
substances are extracted, and most of them were 
once thrown away as waste products. Today they 
are valuable products, and include such commercial 
items as benzine, axle-grease, paraffine, naphtha, 
asphaltum, tar, vaseHnes, pomades, ointments, and 
drugs. 

The cotton seed that was once so slowly and 
laboriously extracted from the bolls of cotton and 
then thrown away is found to have a great commer- 
cial value, and now finds a ready market in meals 
and oils and lard compounds all over the world. 

Before paper manufacturers began to experience 
difficulty in securing enough wood pulp for their 
needs, nobody thought that old paper had any value. 
But the forests have largely been denuded, and trees 
enough are not available any longer for making 
wood pulp from which most paper is made. For this 
reason there is a universal shortage of paper, and to 
overcome it people everywhere are urged to save 
and sell their old paper that it may be used again by 
the manufacturers. Even the Secretary of Com- 
merce, of the President's Cabinet, recently issued an 
appeal to the school children of the country to assist 
in the paper conservation movement for the good of 
the nation. The experience of one city in compliance 
with this request may be told here as an illustration 
of the possibilities in this one field of conservation. 

Waste paper campaigns. — Decatur, Illinois, is a 
city of nearly forty-five thousand inhabitants and 



THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 225 

has an enrollment of nearly sixty-five hundred 
children in its public schools. Through the en- 
couragement of two civic organizations of the city, 
the schools made a concerted effort to gather up, 
bale, and sell waste paper and old magazines for 
one week. Principals, teachers, pupils, and janitors 
caught the spirit of the movement and entered 
upon the contest with zeal. On Saturday following 
the last day of the effort, the paper was hauled 
from the various schools to a central spot in the city, 
where it proved a remarkably interesting object 
lesson in thrift. Neither those who initiated the 
movement nor those who participated in it had 
anticipated half of what was realized, for it was 
found that from fifteen public schools and four 
parochial schools had been collected 73,505 pounds 
of baled paper and 32,355 pounds of old magazines, 
a total of 105,860 pounds or nearly fifty-three tons 1 
Bids were offered by a number of dealers for the 
whole amount, the highest coming from a local 
dealer, who wrote his check for ^1014.56 for it. 
His estimate was that it would require one whole 
car for the magazines and nearly three cars for 
the baled paper. The money was distributed 
among the schools, each receiving pay for just the 
amount of paper it had collected. 

Besides the money itself, several good results 
are traceable to this cooperative enterprise. It was 
a " clean-up " campaign which made cellars and 
closets more sightly in hundreds of homes. The 
fire department of the city saw in it a reduction of 
the city's fire hazard. The health department thinks 
it was a good sanitary movement. But the chief 



226 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

result was the demonstration to old and young 
alike that thousands of dollars' worth of paper in 
the city annually goes up in smoke when it is really 
worth saving. In the future much of it will be saved. 

Thrift and school savings. — School savings, 
and deposits in savings banks through some sort 
of cooperation between local banks and the public 
schools, is another effective means of establishing 
habits of thrift. This movement is growing in 
popularity and deserves to become even more general 
than it now is. 

Recent replies from thirty-two cities having some 
school-savings system reveal eleven different systems 
in operation. Only two superintendents out of that 
number seem to think it makes enough extra work 
for the teachers to offset its advantages. That the 
teachers are friendly to the movement where it is in 
vogue is the almost universal testimony. Twenty- 
four replies state unqualifiedly that school savings 
are growing in popularity and amount in the schools 
that have had some system for a period of years. 
One did not reply to the question, and seven stated 
that they are waning. The banks receiving the 
school savings are reported in twenty-five cases as 
being " favorable," " friendly," or " enthusiastic " 
over the plan. In just three cases were the}^ reported 
as " indifferent," while one reply indicated ignorance 
of the bankers' attitude, and three did not report 
on this point at all. 

There seem to be very wide variations in the ratio 
of the number of school depositors to the total school 
enrollment in cities having school-savings systems. 
One small city with an enrollment of 3000 pupils 



THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 227 

reports 1500 depositors. Two or three others report 
depositors ranging from one third to one half the 
enrollment. At the other extreme are systems in 
which only about one pupil out of twenty-five 
enrolled, becomes a depositor. The median expe- 
rience seems to be one depositor for every four or 
five pupils enrolled. 

The reports showing aggregate school savings per 
year are just as varied when reduced to a per capita 
basis ; but a school system in which the per capita 
deposits for all the depositors is five or six dollars 
would have reason to congratulate itself. Even 
two or three dollars is not a discouraging beginning, 
though forty dollars and more is reported by one 
city, and more than twenty by several. 

The good results which come from school savings 
as seen by those having experience with them are : 
" It teaches thrift " ; " Increases the interest of 
parents in the schools " ; " Many pupils continue 
their savings accounts after leaving school " ; " Many 
children save enough to buy their books and 
clothes " ; " Encourages them to estabHsh and 
maintain bank accounts " ; " Interests pupils in 
saving " ; " Teaches the habit of thrift " ; " Pupils 
learn business methods " ; " Acquaints children and 
their parents with banks and their uses " ; " Prevents 
spending of money without cause " ; " Reduces the 
amount of money spent for candy "; etc. Such 
testimonials from the authorities in cities which 
have had experience with systematic school savings 
are sufficient as a recommendation. What these 
schools have done to promote habits of thrift, 
other schools can do if they try. 



228 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

School and home gardening. — The promotion 
of home and school gardening is still another means 
of accomplishing the same purpose. It can be urged 
for a number of reasons. Working in the garden 
insures a needed amount of sunshine, fresh air, and 
exercise, all of which tend to promote health. It 
aflFords an opportunity for a most vital sort of 
nature study and training in science. It fosters and 
builds up habits of industry. But it does even more 
for children in making it possible for them to be 
producers of a commodity for which there is an 
increasing demand everywhere. The cost of living 
and the price of nearly everything we eat has in- 
creased to such an extent in recent years that the 
receipts which may easily be derived from the sale of 
vegetables grown in a home or school garden or upon 
a vacant forty-foot lot are not to be despised. Few 
children and perhaps not many parents realize what 
a small garden spot may be made to yield under 
favorable conditions. As an illustration of its 
possibihties, the following paragraph telling of the 
achievement of one Decatur schoolboy is submitted : 

got permission from his parents to convert their 



back lot, a forty-foot one, into a garden. Then from a 
neighbor next door he secured the same concession. The 
two lots gave him a total area for garden purposes of 
about 4000 square feet. Carefully preparing the soil 
and fertilizing it, he planted it in vegetables, principally 
tomatoes. Throughout the summer he cultivated and 
watered his garden. As his harvest came on he found a 
good market for it among his neighbors, who were pleased 
to pay the highest market price for vegetables fresh from 
his garden day by day. At the end of the season he 



THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 239 

found that his gross sales were approximately $165, while 
his net gain was but a few dollars less than that amount." 

The next year five hundred school children in the 
same city entered a garden contest. While no 
contestant reported the same degree of success as 
that of the boy just referred to, no child entered 
the contest in vain. The movement is so important 
and has so much to recommend it that the United 
States Commissioner of Education is urging its 
extension throughout the country and offering 
practical aid through bulletins and extension workers 
whose help may be had for the asking. In many 
cities the mayors are cooperating with the school 
authorities in finding every available vacant lot for 
garden use and then in bringing the right boys and 
lots together for that work. Since health and 
happiness and habits of thrift are all promoted by 
this means, the movement is one that deserves the 
endorsement of every teacher and parent throughout 
the country. 

Promotion of clubs. — The promotion of corn 
clubs, tomato clubs, pig clubs, calf clubs, and still 
others of like purpose is another means of en- 
couraging thrift in rural districts. The effort which 
the government is making through its field workers 
to teach girls and women how to can, not only 
fruits, but many kinds of vegetables as well, is 
really an effort to teach thrift to our people. Few 
more striking economies are within reach of the 
average family than that of canning for winter use 
the fruits and vegetables which are so much more 
plentiful and lower-priced in their proper season. 



230 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Household budgets. — In connection with the 
courses in household economics or the arithmetic 
of the grammar grades valuable lessons in thrift 
are taught in many schools. This is sorely needed, 
for investigation in some school systems shows that 
only about one child out of one hundred comes from 
a home in which household accounts are carefully 
kept and anything like a scientific budget of expendi- 
tures is adhered to. To take a family income of 
ten dollars per week, another of twenty, and still 
another of thirty, forty, fifty or more, and try to 
determine what percentage of it may safely go for 
rent, for food, for clothing, for operating expenses, 
for higher life — books, magazines, entertainments, 
church, charity, for savings, etc., is not only a very 
practical aspect of ordinary schoolwork that will 
increase the interest in certain phases of arithmetic 
and household arts courses, but, more than that, it 
gives most students their first insight into the very 
diflicult problem of adjusting family or personal 
outlay to income. It is just about as true of families 
as of school systems and business organizations that 
a standardization of expenses makes for efficiency, 
solvency, and peace of mind. The most elementary 
lessons in thrift as a practice and a habit require 
such standardization. It really matters very little 
what one's income is, it could easily all go for rent, 
or for the table, or for clothing, or for travel, or for 
charity, or for any combination of these, to the neg- 
lect of other important appeals and obhgations. 
Thrift wisely practiced has as much reference to wise 
spending as to saving. It certainly ought to result in 
something better than penuriousness, stinginess, or 



THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 23 1 

miserliness on the one hand ; and something better 
than the gratification of Epicurean desires from day 
to day, to the neglect of the claims of the higher 
life, on the other hand. " There is a happy medium," 
says Straus, " between extravagance and penurious- 
ness. One of the evils of the day Hes in the fact 
that many of us live far beyond our resources. 
Jealousy, social ambitions, business rivalry, personal 
egotism, false pride — all play their part in the 
strife and the stress and mad rush of the twentieth 
century. Many of our false economic conditions 
are due to this baneful tendency to overHve, to over- 
spend, to overindulge, and to overplay our part in 
hfe's daily round. On the other hand, we have 
those citizens who are cheap and tight-fisted in 
their habits — who are unwiUing to reward their 
fellow men for work well done. With them progress 
halts; they contribute little or nothing to the up- 
building of the things that are worth while. Midway 
between miserhness and extravagance Hes the path- 
way of the greater thrift — and I say that it is in 
the better understanding of this fact and the apphca- 
tion of it in our hves and in the Hves of those around 
us, that we have a problem and an opportunity.'* 

The financial value of an education. — Since 
statistics prove that there is, within certain Hmits, 
a very constant ratio between education and income, 
teachers in the upper grammar grades of the ele- 
mentary schools can promote the cause of thrift 
by teaching the facts of this relationship. From 
the United States Bureau of Education exhibit at 
the Panama Pacific Exposition the following was 
taken : 



232 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

EVERY DAY SPENT IN SCHOOL PAYS THE 
CHILD NINE DOLLARS 

Here Is the Proof 

Uneducated laborers earn on the average $500 per year 

for forty years, a total of $20,000. 

High school graduates earn on the average $1000 per year 

for forty years, a total of ^40,000. 

This education required 12 years of schooling of 180 days 

each, a total of 2160 days in school. 
If 2160 days at school add $20,000 to the income for life, 

then each day at school adds $9.02. 

The Child That Stays Out of School to Earn Less 
Than $9.00 a Day Is Losing Money, Not Making 
Money. 

Health in relation to thrift. — Some lessons in 
hygiene can be made to function more readily by 
teaching them in relation to thrift. Indeed, the 
National Society for the Promotion of Thrift 
recognizes that this subject is in large measure one 
that relates to a proper physical education. The 
teacher who forfeits her salary every day she is 
absent from her school, and the workman who 
loses his wages every day he is unable to work, can 
appreciate this relationship. The parent who saves 
a hundred dollars to apply to the payment of an 
installment due upon his house and then finds that 
sickness in his family takes it all and more to pay 
doctors' bills, has a similar basis for understanding it. 
The wisest thrift certainly demands good health 
and good health habits. Any one who jeopardizes 
his health to make money, and any one who un- 



THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 233 

necessarily disregards the most obvious laws of health 
in following his gainful occupation, is unwise and 
in the end not hkely to be thrifty. Sickness and 
disease are among the most stubborn enemies of 
thrift. They make doubly difficult the accompHsh- 
ment of its aims, and may rob one of the ultimate 
enjoyment of all that thrift succeeds in bringing. 
Many a man, by dint of great industry, self-denial, 
and wise investments, has succeeded in building up a 
fortune, but during the period of years spent in 
doing it has so transgressed the laws of hygiene as 
to break down his health permanently. The rest 
of his Kfe is not infrequently spent in wretchedness, 
suffering, and fruitless attempts to recover his 
health, for which he would gladly give his last dollar 
if that would avail anything. 

The great insurance companies appreciate so well 
the relationship we are here discussing, that many 
of them are engaged in a campaign of educating 
their poHcyholders in matters pertaining to health 
and hygiene. Indeed, some of the periodic literature 
issued by these companies is superior to some of the 
textbooks in physiology and hygiene used in our 
schools, because it contains only minimal essentials, 
with nothing else to distract the reader's attention. 
Insurance companies encourage thrift among their 
policyholders, but they know so well that sickness, 
disease, and lowered vitality do so much to counter- 
act it that they can well afford to spend large sums 
of money in disseminating information and encourag- 
ing habits that will conserve the health, and increase 
both the productivity and the longevity of these 
policyholders. 



234 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

" Saving money is one of the foundation stones 
in the building of a thrifty character — but it is no 
more the sum total of thrift than one stone is the 
sum total in the foundation of a great house. A 
man may be a money-saver, and yet if he dissipates 
or is immoral, he is not thrifty. A man may save 
money — yet if he works eighteen hours a day, 
to the detriment of his health, he is not thrifty. 
True thrift consists in the judicious use of all our 
mental, material, and physical resources, and 
when we merely save money we have only gone 
part way." 

David Starr Jordan has been quoted as saying 
that, " The spirit of thrift is opposed to waste on 
the one hand and to recklessness on the other. It 
does not involve stinginess, which is an abuse of 
thrift, nor does it require that each item of savings 
should be a financial investment; the money that is 
spent in the education of one's self or of one's family, 
in travel, in music, in art, or in helpfulness to others, 
if it brings real returns in personal development or 
in a better understanding of the world we live in, is 
in accordance with the spirit of thrift." 

One of the phrases we often hear these days is 
" learning to earn " ; another is " earning to learn." 
Ambitious young people are doing both in large 
numbers. Habits of thrift that react favorably upon 
character can be fixed by either practice. In our 
colleges and normal schools no students command 
more respect than those who are self-supporting, 
working at anything honorable their hands find to 
do to make their way through school. But this 
practice is not confined to students of college age. 



THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 235 

Many high-school students are making efforts 
equally praiseworthy to complete their high-school 
course. Wishing to know how many such students 
were in the Decatur high school, I made an inves- 
tigation recently and ascertained the facts here 
submitted : 

"Approximately one out of five students, or 162 in all, 
are found to be working mornings, evenings, or Saturdays, 
at something for which they are paid amounts ranging 
from I5j/^ to $15 per week. Only one pupil reports earn- 
ings of the lower limit, and one the higher. The news- 
papers, as might be inferred, offer opportunity to the 
largest number of this group of workers, employing 40, 
or 25 per cent of the whole number, in part-time service 
— as carriers, reporters, etc. Twenty-nine find employ- 
ment as clerks, 9 as delivery hands, 8 in tending furnaces, 
5 as nursemaids, 6 take tickets or serve as ushers at 
motion-picture shows. One, two, or three find it possible 
to earn something at each of the following : 

band or orchestra engraving setting pins in 

bank clerk lumberyards bowling alley 

bookkeeping machine shops show-card writing 

chauffeur meat market soda-dispensing 

coal agent messenger service soliciting magazine 

collecting giving music lessons subscriptions 

crocheting picking poultry soliciting soap sub- 

dairy work playing piano at scriptions 

doing chores Y. M. C. A. telephone operator 

elevator boy pressing clothes tending poultry 

shoveling snow waiting on tables 

wrapper in a store 

"The total weekly earnings by these 162 students is 
$402.85. For the school year of 38 weeks this gives the 
very respectable sum of $15,308.30. But better than 



236 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

the financial contribution of these students is the habit 
of work, of self-reHance, of initiative, of thrift, thus ac- 
quired. No other student can ever know the value of a 
dollar quite so well as the one who has measured it in 
terms of actual service rendered, and hours spent in 
earning it. Such knowledge is a most valuable supple- 
mentary factor in any one's education. Without it, no 
education is quite complete. 

"Four hundred sixty-eight students, most of them 
girls, worked at nothing for which they were paid, dur- 
ing the summer vacation. About 300 others, or approxi- 
mately 37 per cent of the whole student body, earned and 
received amounts ranging from ^i, the lowest, to ^425, 
the highest earned. The total earnings for the group 
was $16,097, ^^ average of approximately $50 each. 



32 students 


report 


earnings from 


$1.00 


to 


$10.00 


35 






12.00 




20.00 


41 






25.00 




30.00 


19 






32.00 




40.00 


29 






44.00 




50.00 


22 " 






52.00 




60.00 


12 " 






63.00 




70.00 


26 






72.00 




80.00 


6 






84.00 




90.00 


18 






95.00 




100.00 


35 




" above 


100.00 






Others who 


repori 


ted did not remember 


the amount 



earned. 

*' Combining this record with that of students' earnings 
while school is in session, it appears that there is an annual 
amount of $31,405.00 earned by the high-school students 
in Decatur. While this record can be improved through 
the cooperation of parents and school, still it is rather 
encouraging to see * earning and learning' moving thus 



THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 237 

together towards the reaHzation of an all-round educational 
ideal." 1 

Using biography to teach thrift. — Biography 
may certainly be used by teachers all through the 
grades to teach the lessons of thrift effectively. 
Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography ought to be read 
by every schoolboy before he leaves the grammar 
grades. It tells an interesting story of personal 
achievement in industry, in science, in patriotism 
and statesmanship, but more pertinent to our 
theme, it tells such a story of thrift and of adherence 
to well-defined and carefully followed rules of life 
as make easier the practice of thrift by any one who 
believes Franklin's life worthy of emulation in this 
respect. His story is an example literally illustra- 
tive of the scriptural text, " Seest thou a man diligent 
at his business : he shall stand before kings," for 
Franklin did stand before the kings of both France 
and Great Britain, and rendered conspicuous and 
patriotic service for his country before these two 
courts. 

Russell Sage was not always the possessor of the 
miUions with which he has endowed great founda- 
tions, for he started out as a grocery clerk at one 
dollar per week, and later worked as an office boy 
at very low wages. He attributes his financial 
success, not to luck, but to the habits of hard work 
and the practice of saving some of his earnings, how- 
ever small they were. 

The president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, 

1 Published in the Fiftieth Annual Report of the Board of Education, 
Decatur, Illinois, and in Educational Administration and Supervision, 
January, 1916. 



238 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

which spans Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
Ocean, is quoted as saying that the proudest day in 
his hfe was the day on which he received his first 
pay, which " he took to his mother for her to bank 
— not to the ice-cream parlor nor to the candy 
store. His first job was that of office boy in the 
purchasing department of the Chicago, Milwaukee, 
and St. Paul Railroad. In that department he 
learned the value of carefulness in expenditure, and 
carried it out in his daily life as well as in the office." 
He was the son of a Milwaukee policeman, but rose 
from a lowly position, often called a " blind alley " 
job, to one of commanding influence and power 
" chiefly because he has considered thrift the greatest 
of all virtues." 

The stories of John Wanamaker and Edison and 
Luther Burbank and Booker T. Washington and 
Garfield and Lincoln and scores of others which 
can easily be found by the teacher, will teach the 
same lesson of success achieved through the practice 
of industry, self-denial, thrift, and kindred virtues. 
The more intimately children come to know these 
lives and the principles which actuated them, the 
more clearly they can see that success is achieved 
in no worthy calling by royal roads or short and easy 
cuts. Hard work, great labor, economy, frugality, 
self-denial, persistence, these are the earmarks of 
those who have made the most of life, whether in 
amassing fortunes or rendering large service to hu- 
manity in other fields than finance. 



THE TEACHING OF THRIFT 239 



Questions and Suggestions 

1. Show what factors and tendencies in American life 
make the practice of thrift a difficult one to estabhsh 
today. 

2. Is poverty a blessing or a curse to an individual ? 
To a community ? What determines the answer ? 

3. Show by comparisons the correlation that exists in 
different communities between wealth on the one hand, 
and on the other hand pay of teachers and preachers, 
length of schools, kind of roads, number of students 
going to college, etc. 

4. Make a local survey that will show the habits of 
children with reference to spending money for motion 
pictures, candy, chewing gum, tobacco, ice cream, etc. 

5. Find how many in your school have bank accounts, 
savings in a building and loan association, or other prop- 
erty of their own. What can the school do to encourage 
such practices I 

6. Make it apparent that either hoarding and miser- 
liness or reckless spending is an immoral act. 

7. Collect information concerning successful men and 
women, and be prepared to show to your school the 
means they used in getting their start in life. 

8. Compare the moral values of money used in the 
promotion of legitimate industry and that used in getting 
an education for service. 

9. Is a man who comes by his wealth honestly under a 
moral obligation to give any portion of it away to chari- 
table, benevolent, religious, educational, or other in- 
stitutions ? 

10. Discuss the thrift suggestions in the chapter. 
Add others growing out of your experience and observa- 
tion. 

11. To what extent have the schools of your com- 



240 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

munity utilized the government's plan for promoting 
thrift through the sale of thrift stamps and war savings 
stamps ? 

References for Further Reading 

Bexell, J. A. : Thrift and Its Relation to Banking, in Proceed- 
ings N. E. A. 1916, pp. 210-215. 

Blake, Kate Devereux : Thrift in Its Relation to the Home, 
in Proceedings N. E. A. 1916, pp. 220-225. 

Dempsey, Clarence H. : Thrift in Relation to Industries, in 
Proceedings N. E. A. 1916, pp. 205-210. 

Pritchard and Turkington : Stories of Thrift for Young 
Americans. Scribner's. 

Straus, S. W. : Thrift — An Educational Necessity, in Pro- 
ceedings N. E. A. 1916, pp. 196-201. 

Stuart, Milo H. : Thrift in Its Relation to Conservation, in 
Proceedings N. E.A. 1916, pp. 215-220. 

Wilson, Robert H. : Thrift in Its Relation to Country Life, 
in Proceedings N. E. A. 1916, pp. 201-205. 



CHAPTER XVII 

SEX INSTRUCTION IN RELATION TO MORALITY 

Consequences of sex perversions. — There are 
many mooted questions concerning the need, nature, 
extent, time, and place of sex instruction ; but there 
is a consensus of opinion that the whole problem is 
intimately bound up with moral questions. That 
there is a fearful amount of immorality, ranging 
from vulgar stories and jests to practices of mas- 
turbation, illicit relations between the sexes, white 
slave traffic, and prostitution, all due, in large meas- 
ure, to a lack of proper instruction and training at 
the right time, is all too apparent. Some of the 
effects resulting from these practices are the birth 
of illegitimate children, the breaking up of homes, 
crowded divorce courts, spread of loathsome venereal 
diseases, children born blind, wives finding pre- 
mature graves, and wrecks of human lives, with 
hope gone, seeking relief through suicide. It is 
difficult, indeed, to conceive of any social problems 
with more of moral significance than is presented 
by the questions and problems which grow out of 
sex, though teachers and parents seem to have real- 
ized but recently how serious the problem is, and 
how very important is its solution as a part of the 
program of moral education. 

241 



242 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Changing attitude of parents and teachers. — 

For generations there was a tacit assumption on the 
part of refined people that sex matters could not be 
discussed with propriety, and that children must be 
kept in ignorance of every law pertaining to the 
reproduction of life, to insure a proper amount of 
modesty and chastity. At last we have awakened 
to the fact that the social evils mentioned above have 
all flourished under that sort of regimen, and that 
the truth taught in this field by the right persons at 
the right time is just as likely to result in a beneficent 
freedom as it does when taught in other lines. 

It is difficult to understand why we have been so 
long in seeing that children have not remained so 
innocent of all knowledge of sex as parents generally 
have assumed they would remain. Of many things 
which they ought to know they have been ignorant, 
to be sure, but of others they have learned from 
sources that polluted both thought and practice. 
Ignorant servants, the " hired man," and vulgar 
older boys have been the gratuitous and often as- 
siduous teachers of children, answering their ques- 
tions, and volunteering bits of information about 
matters both scientific and sacred, in terms and 
spirit that debauch and degrade the learner. The 
remedy for such a situation is for parents and 
teachers to become more frank, and, without be- 
coming immodest, to throw aside the veil of false 
modesty, and teach the truths that children ought 
to know when their curiosity is ripe and their need 
is recognized. 

Shall mothers explain the origin of life ^ — One 
of the first questions of the child which has been 



SEX INSTRUCTION 



H3 



answered in the past with a myth or a falsehood is, 
" Where do babies come from ? " For the parent 
to reply that a good fairy, or the stork, or a doctor 
brings them, and then to vouchsafe no further in- 
struction, may suffice for a time to stop further in- 
quiry, but it will not be long until the child will 
inquire from some one else where the doctor gets 
the babies. The answers he gets are by no means 
such as to minister to his deeper needs, nor such as 
to show the sacred aspects of motherhood nor the 
beauty of right conjugal relationships. 

Some mothers have learned that they dare to 
answer such a question with the truth. Why should 
they not tell that babies are born, i.e., that they 
gro\y within the mother's own body, are tenderly 
carried there for months until they are mature 
enough to be taken from her and Kve .? The interest 
that may be awakened in a child for an unborn baby 
brother or sister is a beautiful thing to see. It may 
be rnade to react most helpfully upon the child's 
relation to his mother during the anxious months 
that precede delivery; but best of all, the question 
thus answered makes it unnecessary to seek in- 
formation from those who will give vulgar and dis- 
torted notions concerning a natural and sacred 
phenomenon. 

Simple biological facts pertaining to reproduction. 
— When a child develops a curiosity that is un- 
satisfied by the mere statement that babies come 
from the mother's own body, he is probably pre- 
pared for sorne further explanation of the biological 
facts pertaining to reproduction. The time is ripe 
for an approach to the subject through analogies in 



244 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

the plant world, and in the animal world below man. 
One of the most elementary facts having a bearing 
in this direction is that there is such a thing as sex 
in plants. The necessity for fertilization, i.e., the 
union of a generative cell from a grain of pollen 
with that of an egg cell at the apex of the embryo 
sac, and the wonderful anatomy of a flower, with 
special reference to stamens, pollen, and pistil, af- 
ford a starting point. 

For the students who go through high school and 
take a course in botany, such a lesson will find its 
place as a part of a normal botanical sequence, but 
it may be taught even to grammar-school students, 
and children still younger, in accounting for the 
development of a new life. 

The wise parent will find it helpful to discuss the 
facts of reproduction in fishes, frogs, fowls, and 
mammals to teach one characteristic common to 
them all, i.e., that new life starts with an egg, ovum, 
after it has been fertilized and not till this happens. 
In the case of most plants each flower has both 
male and female parts, the pollen being transferred 
from the former to the latter to start the new life, often 
with the help of insects or the wind. Among the 
animals named there are males and females of their 
kind, each with its own peculiar function. But 
whether in plant or animal, the essentials for the 
development of a new life are the same. In frogs, 
the female's eggs are fertilized by the male just as 
they leave her body. In fishes, the female's eggs are 
fertilized by the male after they are deposited in 
the water. In fowls, they are fertilized within the 
female's body, then laid, and later hatched by the 



SEX INSTRUCTION 245 

warmth of her body as she sits on her nest. In 
mammals, they are fertihzed within the female's 
body, but retained there during the whole period of 
development into new Hfe. Such a provision on 
the part of nature insures to the young of these 
higher, more important form.s of life, of which 
the baby is the very highest, the maximum of 
protection and care during this critical formative 
period. 

Sex hygiene for early adolescents. -^ The early 
adolescent years marking the approach of puberty 
bring with them new problems fraught with still 
greater moral bearing. The promptings of the new- 
born sex impulse of this age call for a type of in- 
struction and a warning that are unnecessary and 
even meaningless to younger children. Perhaps 
the personal need of boys is greatest at this time, 
for theirs is the greater danger of suffering through 
ignorance. 

The supremely important lesson in sex hygiene 
for boys of this age is that the vital procreative 
fluid, semen, corresponding to the pollen of plants, 
is essential not only for the fertilization of an ovum, 
but its presence in the young adolescent is a pre- 
requisite for his personal development into a strong, 
robust, and virile man. It is this latter fact that 
makes the secret practice of self-abuse a hazardous 
thing. Boys should be taught the necessity^ of 
bridling their sex impulses for their own physical 
welfare; that every voluntary act resulting in a loss 
of fluids so vital is done at the expense of the whole 
organism ; and that the manly quahties which 
characterize the best of men are sacrificed in a large 



246 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

measure unless there is a conservation of this fluid 
throughout the whole period of youth. 

It is helpful to show wherein eunuchs differ from 
other men and why. With their testes removed in 
childhood, they not only can never become fathers, 
but they can not develop even the superficial char- 
acteristics belonging to the normal adult male. 
Their voices do not change as boys' voices ought to 
change at puberty. Their beard does not grow. 
They remain soft and effeminate, lacking in the 
qualities, both physical and mental, which ought to 
characterize men. All these masculine charac- 
teristics are made possible by the reaction of the 
seminal secretions when they are permitted to re- 
main in the body throughout youth until they are 
ultimately needed in begetting a new life. 

Personal honor to be developed. — Though such 
a lesson should be taught early adolescent boys, it 
need not be dwelt on at length. Much more im- 
portant is it to shield them from the evil influence 
of vulgar companions ; to encourage them in an ac- 
tive physical life and acts of athletic prowess ; to 
give them clean, wholesome books to read ; to keep 
from them pictures that are obscene or suggestive ; 
and in other ways fill their waking hours with that 
which inspires and ennobles life. 

The temptation to satisfy sexual desires in youth 
by illicit relations with the opposite sex can be 
offset by the development of a code of ethics and a 
sense of personal honor in both boys and girls. 
Society has placed the stamp of its sternest disap- 
proval upon such relationships, for excellent reasons. 
Among civiHzed and Christian peoples the demand 



SEX INSTRUCTION 247 

has always been made that girls be chaste, and no 
other sort are eligible for the honorable and sacred 
estate of marriage. A different standard of morality 
for boys and men has come to be repugnant to the 
sensibilities of the best men and women alike. No 
boy has a right to take hberties \yith any girl that 
he would resent if taken with his sister by some 
other boy. If he is manly he will not take them. 

But besides an attempt to develop ideals of honor 
as a safeguard, there remains the necessity of taking 
such precautions as may lessen the temptation to 
sexual immorality. Certain games played in young 
people's parties, public dance halls, and especially 
certain of the newer dances bordering on the inde- 
cent, are all calculated to inflame the passions and 
make chastity a more diflficult thing to maintain 
than it ought to be. 

As for the temptation to visit a red-hght district 
for sexual indulgence, if boys of the early teens age 
were made aware in time of the personal risks in- 
curred in such visits and of their possible social con- 
sequences, there could hardly be a temptation any 
longer. Immoral women are all diseased at one 
time or another, and no man can hope to visit them 
and escape physical contamination with a loathsome 
venereal disease, sooner or later, to say nothing of 
what he does to his own manhood and self-respect 
in seeking a dearly bought experience in such a place. 

The testimony of physicians. — Physicians state 
that seventy per cent of all the blindness in the 
world and forty per cent of all the operations upon 
women are due to venereal infections. How any 
one who ever aspires to be the husband of a virtuous 



248 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

wife, or the father of a strong and physically perfect 
child, could take a step so likely to cheat him out 
of the greatest happiness home life can bring, is 
difficult to understand. The sowing of wild oats 
should be contemplated in connection with its later 
consequences — suffering, disease, regret, blasted 
hopes, blind children, death itself, for it can truly be 
asserted here that the wages of sin is death, though 
it is too often the death of innocent wives and chil- 
dren rather than of the sinner. 

Who shall give lessons in matters of sex. — The 
question as to who should give instruction in sex 
hygiene is not easy to answer. That the ideal place 
is in the home is generally admitted. But the fact 
remains that thousands of homes are incompetent 
to give it, and that other thousands ignore the duty. 
It is for this reason that social workers and educators 
are turning to the public schools for the discharge 
of this delicate duty. 

The teacher of physiology and hygiene has an 
opportunity in her classes, but it is limited because 
these classes have both boys and girls. Certain as- 
pects of the subject may well be taught in nature- 
study groups, but this, too, is open to the same ob- 
jection. The biology teacher in the high school 
deals with older pupils, but he encounters the same 
obstacle. The physical directors and athletic 
coaches, dealing with boys and girls in separate 
groups, are free from this handicap and if capable 
can, therefore, give valuable instruction in this Kne. 

Some schools have found it profitable to arrange 
for a few talks by physicians, men for boys and 
women for girls. Their more accurate knowledge 



SEX INSTRUCTION 249 

and their wide experience give the weight of au- 
thority to their words and doubtless produce an 
impression that no teacher can so easily make. 

Other schools have found a way of approach to 
the subject through mothers' clubs. Where these 
clubs can be induced to take up a study of the 
subject this solution of the probleni seems one of 
the most hopeful ones, particularly if the clubs in- 
clude in their membership most of the mothers hav- 
ing children in the schools. In Decatur, Illinois, e.g.y 
a few such clubs, on the recommendation of the 
superintendent, studied in their monthly meetings 
for one school year Galloway's The Biology of Sex.^ 
This book is sane in the method and matter sug- 
gested, and popular enough in its language, though 
written by a scientist, to be a profitable guide to 
parents who would teach their children but feel 
their unpreparedness to attempt it. The results of 
the study were gratifying to all who pursued it. 

Some time ago the Indiana State Board of Health 
issued a health circular, entitled " Social Hygiene 
vs. The Sexual Plagues," calling the attention of the 
pubhc and of parents in particular to " the direful 
consequences of sex secrecy and the obhgation of 
parents and the state to protect the rising genera- 
tion." No one can read this bulletin without feel- 
ing that both home and school must soon find a 
way to solve this problem or permit our people to 
suffer the moral decay that has overtaken several 
older civilizations. 

An excellent httle pamphlet, entitled " Sex in 
Life," written in 1916 for boys and girls from twelve 

1 D. C. Heath & Co. 



250 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

to sixteen years, was awarded the prize of ^1000 pro- 
vided by the MetropoHtan Life Insurance Com- 
pany. It is now issued by the American Social 
Hygiene Association, New York City. 

For teachers much help may be found in a pam- 
phlet issued as the Report of the Special Committee 
on the Matter and Methods of Sex Education, pre- 
sented before the subsection on sex hygiene of the 
Fifteenth International Congress on Hygiene and 
Demography held in Washington, D. C, 1912. It 
is issued by the American Federation for Sex Hy- 
giene, New York City. 

The personnel of the committee — Maurice A. 
Bigelow, Thomas M. Balliet, and Prince A. Morrow, 
M.D. — is such as to give unusual weight to this 
report. 

Some generally accepted principles. — That por- 
tion of the report which offers a general outline of 
a plan of sex education constitutes eleven pages of 
the thirty-four in the pamphlet. Some of the more 
salient points in the outline are herewith quoted. 

"i. Sex instruction has a purely practical aim and 
should be strictly limited by this aim. Its purpose is 
to impart such knowledge of sex at each period of the 
child's life as may be necessary to preserve health, de- 
velop right thinking, and control conduct. Its aim is 
both hygienic and ethical. . . . 

"2. Sex instruction must differ in one important 
respect from other scientific instruction, in that it must 
not seek to create interest and awaken curiosity in the 
subject with which it deals, but merely to satisfy the 
curiosity which spontaneously arises in the child's mind, 
by answering his questions truthfully, but only so com- 



SEX INSTRUCTION 251 

pletely as may be necessary to give proper guidance to 
his conduct, both hygienic and ethical. ... 

"3. It follows from the above principles that detailed 
descriptions of external human anatomy are to be avoided ; 
and that descriptions of internal anatomy should be 
limited to what is necessary to make clear and to impress 
the hygienic bearing of the facts to be taught. . . . 

"4. The purely scientific basis for such instruction 
must be laid in the biological nature study in elementary 
schools and in the more systematic instruction in biology 
and hygiene in secondary schools and colleges. . . . 

"5. It must be supplemented by providing proper 
physical exercises; by insisting in the home on regular 
hours of sleep ; by providing adequate facilities for play 
and wholesome amusements ; by protecting children 
from the unwholesome associations and corrupting in- 
fluences of debasing shows and immoral literature ; and 
by maintaining the confidence of children in their parents 
and teachers so that signs of danger may be the more 
promptly detected. 

"6. The purely scientific instruction must be reen- 
forced ^ as strongly as possible by ethical instruction, 
both direct and indirect, with due regard to the maturity 
of those taught. . . . Appeals to the sense of personal 
self-respect and purity and to the instinct of chivalry 
can be effectively made in the earliest years of adoles- 
cence, and even before. 

"7. The value of physical exercise, especially in the 
form of play and athletic sport, in its bearing on the 
control of the sex instinct, is so generally recognized that 
it needs no special emphasis here. . . . 

"8. The period from six to twelve, which might be 
subdivided into that of early childhood and that of later 
childhood, covers the greater part of the elementary 
school period. Here the school must share with the 
home the hygienic and moral care of the child. . . , 



252 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

"9. Truthful and delicate answering of the child's 
questions as to the origin of the individual human life, 
and instruction which will protect it from forming in- 
jurious sexual habits, constitute the chief features of sex 
instruction during the early years of this period. Such 
instruction at this period is best given privately, and 
should be carefully adapted to the child's individual 
needs. ... 

'*io. The aim should be, so far as specific sex instruc- 
tion is concerned, to impress deeply the mind of the child 
with the beautiful and marvelous processes of nature by 
which life is reproduced from life, both in the plant world 
and in the animal world. It is not necessary, and in 
most cases not desirable, that children should make ap- 
plication of this knowledge to reproduction in man before 
the beginning of adolescence, further than that the 
human infant is developed within the mother. . . . 

"11. The ethical relations in the home between parents 
and children and between brothers and sisters should be 
emphasized. It should be impressed upon every boy 
that every girl is somebody's daughter and usually some- 
body's sister, and that it is his sacred duty to accord 
her the same respect and protection which he would 
exact from another boy toward his own sister. It has 
been found by actual experience that this point cf view 
can be made to appeal strongly to boys even when some 
other points of view do not appeal effectively. . . . 

"In conclusion, your Committee would emphasize the 
necessity of good judgment and tact in introducing sex 
instruction into schools. It should not be introduced 
prematurely, but only so fast as teachers can be found 
or trained who are competent to give it, and so fast as 
public sentiment will support it. On the other hand, 
undue weight must not be given to the difficulties attend- 
ing such instruction even under present conditions, in- 
asmuch as even occasional mistakes will do far less harm 



SEX INSTRUCTION 



253 



than allowing children to continue to gain this knowl- 
edge, as many of them now do, from impure sources — 
receiving a pernicious first impression which induces in 
them an attitude of mind toward the subject that makes 
it extremely difficult later to give them the best instruc- 
tion. In not a few such cases subsequent sound teach- 
ing is practically fruitless." 

The excerpts quoted in the foregoing paragraphs 
constitute a summary of the most important judg- 
ments that have been expressed with reference to 
sex instruction. They leave much by way of 
specific direction to be desired, but no parent or 
teacher can go far afield in this vital matter if he 
permits himself to be guided by such principles. 

As a closing word it seems in place to suggest once 
more the fact that whether sex instruction is to re- 
sult in something noble or ignoble depends not so 
much upon when it is given, nor at what age the 
child receives it, but that it does matter tremendously 
whether sex knowledge is learned from vulgar sources, 
or from pure-minded men and women who approach 
the subject with a reverent regard for its importance 
and a desire to have the boy or girl as reverently 
learn what he ought to know. 

Questions and Suggestions 

1. Why have homes and schools failed to give the 
definite sex instruction which it is now generally agreed 
children ought to have ? Account for the more recent 
changed attitude concerning the matter. 

2. To what extent is ignorance responsible for the 
misery, disease, and immorality resulting from abnormal 
sex relationships .? 



2 54 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

3. Does knowledge of sex reverently learned from 
proper sources tend in any way to make the learner less 
modest ? Does ignorance tend to make him in any way 
more virtuous ? Discuss. 

4. Is coeducation in high school helpful or hurtful in 
maintaining standards of sex morality ? Give reasons 
for your answer. Is the attitude towards the opposite 
sex any more rational in a girls' school than in a coedu- 
cational school .? Is there a finer personal honor in the 
boys of a boys' school than in the boys of a mixed school ? 

5. Write out a brief statement of the facts you think 
an adolescent should be taught concerning the sex life. 
If necessary, consult Galloway's Biology of Sex, or some 
other similar source of information. 

6. What are the advantages in, and the objections to, 
having sex instruction given by the home, the physician, 
the elementary school teacher, the physical education 
director, the teacher of biology in the high school, re- 
spectively .? 

7. Consult the health board of your community for 
information concerning the sex hygiene and habits of its 
young people. 



References for Further Reading 

Balliet, Thomas M. : Sex Hygiene and Sex Morality as the 

Aim of Sex Education, in Proceedings N. E. A. 191 5, pp. 

148-152. 
Blount, Ralph E. : The Responsibility of the Teacher with 

Regard to the Teaching of Sex Hygiene, in Proceedings 

N. E.A. 1914, pp. 470-475. 
FoRBUSH, William Byron: The Boy Problem, pp. 147-152. 

The Pilgrim Press. 
Galloway, T. W. : Biology of Sex. D. C. Heath & Co. 
Galloway, T. W. : Sex Instruction, in Proceedings N. E. A. 

1 91 3, pp. 640-647. 



SEX INSTRUCTION 



255 



Griggs, Edward Howard : Moral Education. B. W. Huebsch. 
Peabody, James E. : Some Experiments in Sex Education, in 

Proceedings N. E. A. 1914, pp. 475-481. 
Sneath and Hodges : Moral Training in the School and Home, 

pp. 39-54. Macmillan Co. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

BOY SCOUTING AS A FACTOR IN MORAL TRAINING 

Cooperation between schools and other educative 
agencies. — One of the most promising facts about 
the pubUc schools of today is that they are trying to 
utihze and correlate the educative work of a large 
number of agencies which they once ignored. In 
various cities cooperative arrangements are made 
whereby students may alternate their formal school 
work with work in shop, factory, office, or store. 
In this way pupils get the most valuable vocational 
training possible for them and at the same time 
have the most potent motive for effective school 
work. Cincinnati is a good example of a city which 
has been most successful in developing this sort of 
reciprocity between school and industry. 

In other places the schools have recognized the 
churches and Sunday schools as allies of a helpful 
sort, capable of doing a work that ought to be done, 
yet one which the schools can not do so well, if at 
all. In many places the schools have been able 
to recognize and to credit the moral and religious 
teaching and training thus done by the church. 

In still other places the musical tastes and inter- 
ests of children are fostered through giving them 
school credit for work done in music under approved 

256 



BOY SCOUTING 257 

teachers not connected "with the schools. In other 
words, leading school systems are endeavoring to 
capitalize the numerous agencies which touch child 
hfe in helpful ways, because they recognize more 
and more clearly that education in the broad sense 
is a hfe process, and not a mere matter of intel- 
lectual training within the four walls of a schoolroom. 

Recognition of the Scout movement by the 
N. E. A. — Most significant among the innovations 
just suggested is the recognition of the educative pos- 
sibilities of the Boy Scout moyement.^ One evidence 
of this is the place that was given to its discussion in 
a recent meeting of the National Education Associ- 
ation. Another is the appearance of some notable 
articles upon Boy Scouting in leading educational 
journals by such leaders among school men as Dean 
Russell ^ and Professor Snedden.^ 

Relation of Scouting to formal school work. — 
No one sees in the Scout movement anything that 
can supplant the work of the schools, but it is prov- 
ing a most valuable supplement to them, and seems 
especially strong where the schools are weakest, 
i.e., in giving moral training of a dynamic sort. As 
Dean Russell has pointed out : " The scout program 
is essentially moral training for the sake of efficient 
democratic citizenship. It gives definite embodi- 
ment to the ideals of the school, and supplements 
the efforts of home and church. It works adroitly, 
by a thousand specific habits, to anchor a boy to 
modes of right Hving as securely as if held by chains 
of steel ; but best of all, it exhibits positive gemus 

1 See Educational Review, June, 1917, and Teachers College Record, 
January, 1917. 



258 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

in devising situations that test a boy's self-reliance 
and give full scope to his talents for originality and 
leadership." 

A statement of aims. — Perhaps we should ex- 
pect to find in the literature of the organization the 
best statement of its aims. Hence we quote from 
the Seventh Annual Report of the Boy Scouts of 
America as follows : 

"The aim of the Scout Movement is to inculcate char- 
acter, which, though essential to success in life, is not 
taught within the school, and being largely a matter of 
environment is too generally left to chance, often with 
deplorable results. The Scout Movement endeavors to 
supply the required environment and ambitions through 
games and outdoor activities, which lead a boy to become 
a better man, a good citizen." 

What Scouting Means 

"Scouting means outdoor life and so health, strength, 
happiness, and practical education. By combining whole- 
some, attractive outdoor activities with the influence of 
the Scout Oath and Law the Movement develops character. 

"It develops the power of initiative and resourcefulness. 

"It helps boys. 

"It insures good citizenship. 

"The Boy Scout Movement healthfully and sanely 
offsets the disadvantages which civilization has caused." 

The Scout Oath 

"Before he becomes a Scout a boy must promise: 
"*0n my honor I will do my best — 
"*i. To do my duty to God and my country and to 
obey the Scout law ; 



BOY SCOUTING 



259 



a ( 



2. To help other people at all times ; 

3. To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, 
and morally straight.'" 

The Scout Law 

"l. A Scout is trustzuorthy. 

"A Scout's honor is to be trusted. If he were to 
violate his honor by telling a lie, or by cheating, or by 
not doing exactly a given task, when trusted on his 
honor, he may be directed to hand over his scout badge. 
"2. A Scout is loyal. 

"He is loyal to all to whom loyalty is due: his scout 
leader, his home, and parents and country. 
"3. A Scout is helpful. 

"He must be prepared at any time to save life, help 
injured persons, and share the home duties. He must do 
at least one good turn to somebody every day, 
"4. A Scout is friendly. 

"He is a friend to all and a brother to every other 
Scout. 
"5. A Scout is courteous. 

"He is polite to all, especially to women, children, old 
people, and the weak and helpless. He must not take 
-pay for being helpful or courteous. 
"6. A Scout is kind. 

"He is a friend to animals. He will not kill nor hurt 
any living creature needlessly, but will strive to save and 
protect all harmless life. 
"7. A Scout is obedient. 

"He obeys his parents, scoutmaster, patrol leader, and 
all other duly constituted authorities. 
"8. A Scout is cheerful. 

"He smiles whenever he can. His obedience to orders 
is prompt and cheery. He never shirks nor grumbles at 
hardships. 



26o MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

"9. A Scout is thrifty. 

*'He does not wantonly destroy property. He works 
faithfully, wastes nothing, and makes the best use of his 
opportunities. He saves his money so that he may pay 
his own way, be generous to those in need, and helpful 
to worthy objects. 

^'He may work for pay, but must not receive tips for 
courtesies or good turns. 
" 10. A Scout is brave. 

*'He has the courage to face danger in spite of fear, and 
has to stand up for the right against the coaxings of 
friends or the jeers or threats of enemies, and the defeat 
does not down him. 
"11. A Scout is clean. 

"He keeps clean in body and thought, stands for clean 
speech, clean sport, clean habits, and travels with a clean 
crowd. 
*'i2. A Scout is reverent. 

"He is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his 
religious duties, and respects the convictions of others 
in matters of custom and religion." 

It v^ill be seen from a statement of the tv^elve 
\2iws which every Scout promises to obey v^hen he 
takes the Scout Oath, that the v^hole program of 
action is a positive one. It is based upon sound 
psychology. Any parent, any teacher, and any 
organization which can succeed in inducing boys to 
regulate their lives in accordance with such laws has 
largely solved the problem of character-building. 
Forbidden fruits and negative commands, "thou- 
shalt-nots," have no place in this series. The empha- 
sis is all upon the virtues to be incorporated into life. 

Illustrations of " good turns." — If we take the 
one injunction, " Do a good turn daily," and read 



BOY SCOUTING 261 

reports from different scout organizations, telling the 
specific ways in which this law was obeyed within 
the past year, its far-reaching effect may be better 
understood. The following are typical, and are all 
tak,en from the last annual report of the organiza- 
tion, as submitted in New York City, March 14, 1917 : 

^^ Assisted in Clean-Up Campaigns. — Conducted suc- 
cessful campaign during city clean-up week. One thou- 
sand circulars distributed in neighborhood, displayed 300 
posters, and reported objectionable places to Health 
Department, 20 boys of troops took part, and each set 
an example in his own district. (Buffalo, N. Y.) 

^'Performed Charity Work. — Carried flowers to hos- 
pitals, magazines and papers to asylum for poor and 
hospitals. Furnished supplies to a needy family. (Mem- 
phis, Tenn.) 

^'Kindness to Animals. — The boys held a bird-house 
building contest and put the houses up in those places 
where the birds would not be molested. (Roselle, N. J.) 

^^ Searched for Lost Persons. — On January 4th and 6th 
Scouts were a part of large civic body who engaged in a 
search for the late Mayor of Waltham, Thomas E. Kearns, 
who disappeared and was later found under ice in river. 
(West Newton, Mass.) 

^^ Acted as Guides or Escorts. — During the year we 
have served as escort to Spanish War Veterans, G. A. R. 
Veterans, and 8th Regiment, M. V. M. (Somerville, 
Mass.) Ushered when President Wilson was in St. 
Louis. Took care of the traffic when '* Liberty Bell" 
passed through here. Served as guides for Southwestern 
Division State Teachers' meetings here last spring. (East 
St. Louis, 111.) 

''Assisted Church. — The troop pledge ^100 towards 
the building of a new church parish house. (West Haven, 
Conn.) 



262 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

^'Assisted in Public Functions. — Carried and guarded 
Japan Day Flag, P. CLE., August 31, 1915; guided the 
children and their parents from other sections of the state 
through the exposition grounds, July 16-18, 1915. Sold 
two hundred memorial flags and raised twenty dollars 
for the Home Industry Association in Japan. (San 
Francisco, Cal.) 

''Assisted in Safety First Campaign. — Elmer Tice dis- 
covered a broken rail and informed the agent at the 
depot. (Greenville, 111.) 

''Memorial Day. — Assisted the G. A. R. in their pre- 
paredness program. Assisted the Confederate Veter- 
ans on several occasions. Served the City Council on 
several occasions. Participated in several parades, be- 
sides the individuals whom we have served, and in each 
instance proved very satisfactory. (Natchez, Miss.) 

"Fourth of July. — July 4th we had two first-aid 
stations along the line of march of the municipal parade, 
two patients were treated at one of the stations. (Bridge- 
port, Conn.) 

"Labor Day. — Labor Day celebration, taking water 
and other refreshments to veterans, firemen, etc. (Pitts- 
field, Mass.) 

"Assisted Poor or Aged People. — Upon learning of the 
serious illness of a poor farmer in the community, and 
knowing that his cotton, which was his dependence for 
sustenance, needed immediate gathering, the entire troop, 
without even consulting the Scoutmaster, gathered his 
cotton and placed it in safe storage for him. This re- 
quired *real work' of the Scouts. (Oxford, Ala.) 

"Assisted at Municipal Christmas Tree. — Our chief 
good turn was guarding the community Christmas Tree 
and helping the King's Daughters deliver Christmas 
cheer to the poor. (Berwick, Pa.) 

"Assisted at Mosquito and Fly Campaign. — The Scout 
troop undertook to exterminate the mosquito in our 



BOY SCOUTING 263 

village, and carried on the work regularly each week 
throughout the summer with excellent results. (Auburn, 
Ala.) 

^ Aided Police. — Took care of several hundred lost 
children at big school picnic in a crowd of 40,000 people. 
Helped patrol river front during boat races. (East St. 
Louis, 111.) 

''Assisted Red Cross Society. — Secured over 200 new 
members for American Red Cross Society, also assisted 
the local chapter of the American Red Cross Society in 
rolling bandages and making surgical dressings. (Brook- 
lyn.N.Y.) . 

''Acted as Volunteer Forestry Wardens. — Durmg the 
five weeks' camp at Indian Lake, Troop 8 planted 150,000 
spruce trees on 150 acres of land for the State Forestry. 
Assistant Scoutmaster Kuehn and Scouts Stalker and 
Blanchfield received the first scout medals, which were 
presented to them March 14, 1916. (Rome, N. Y.) 

"Persons Saved from Drowning. — One of our boys 
saved five persons from drowning this year, two of them 
National Guardsmen ; one was sent to the hospital com- 
pletely exhausted. The Scout is an expert swimmer 
and merit-badge boy; another, the youngest and smallest 
Scout, brought in a little girl 6 years old who had fallen 
from our diving board. Fifteen persons were taught to 
swim at our camp. (Manitowoc, Wis.) 

"Rendered Service to Poor on Christmas and Thanks- 
giving. — The troop gave donation of dinners at Thanks- 
giving and Christmas donation to orphan asylum and 
day nursery to the value of $10, and are to give a cot to 
the hospital to celebrate its birthday. (Elizabeth, N.J.) 

"Kept Fire Apparatus in Good Condition. — Last winter 
our troop located the nearest fire plug to our homes and 
kept the snow away, so the firemen would not have to 
take time to do this if they wanted to use the plug. 
(Cleveland, O.) 



264 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

'' Census of Condition of Lawns and Backyards. — In the 
spring the Scouts assisted the city in clean-up days, ad- 
vertising it, notifying property owners and city officers 
of unsanitary conditions, and kept the people informed 
when the city rubbish wagons would be on their streets. 
In August took census of condition of lawns and back- 
yards and reported to the city. (Nevada, Mo.)" 

Scouting as an example of expression in education. 

— Throughout the country Boy Scouts have more 
recently rendered valuable and patriotic service in 
canvassing for the sale of Liberty Loan Bonds, se- 
curing subscriptions for the Red Cross funds, Army 
Y. M. C. A. funds, and other worthy war agencies. 
Though their services were recognized and rewarded 
by words of appreciation from President Wilson 
himself, the boys themselves profited most by what 
they did. In no other way could they have been 
schooled in patriotic lessons more effectively. Think- 
ing and feeling was translated by them into action. 
And action of the right sort never fails to leave its 
indelible imprint upon character. 

There are hundreds of communities in which for 
a variety of reasons, it is either not possible or not 
feasible to organize Scout companies. But in all 
such places a knowledge upon the part of parents 
and teachers of what Scouts do, of what they are, 
and of the principles governing their conduct may 
enable the school, home, and church to utilize more 
fully than they do at present the instincts of boys 
to which a proper appeal must be made before char- 
acter of a dynamic sort can be built up. 

It may be remarked in conclusion that the recent 
attempts at socializing the curricula of our schools, 



BOY SCOUTING 265 

socializing the recitation, and motivating instruction 
in school and Sunday school are all steps in the 
direction of greater initiative, self-reliance, and in- 
dependent thinking and acting upon the part of 
children. In all of this the psychology and peda- 
gogy of the Scout movement will have much that is 
suggestive to the teacher who will take the pains 
to discover its bearing and application. If the 
schools of the past have failed in a measure to ac- 
compKsh their task of training boys and girls to 
become socially efficient men and women, it is be- 
cause they have not made sufficient provision for 
expression of life. The really moral character is 
dynamic, not static. It is revealed in what one 
does, rather than what one knows. But more than 
that it results from what one does even more than 
from what one knows. Hence the significance of 
the Scouting program which combines opportunity 
for learning and doing, for impression and expres- 
sion, for thinking and acting as well. It is in this 
way that boys build into their character those quali- 
ties of self-reliance, self-direction, and self-control 
which characterize leaders in all walks of hfe, and 
fit them for life in a democracy. 

" The naturalist may praise it (the Boy Scout 
movement) for its success in putting the boy close 
to nature's heart ; the moralist, for its splendid 
code of ethics ; the hygienist, for its methods of 
physical training; the parent, for its ability to 
keep his boy out of mischief; but from the stand- 
point of the educator, it has marvelous potency for 
converting the restless, irresponsible, self-centered 
boy into the staightforward, dependable, helpful 



266 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

young citizen. To the boy who will give himself 
to it, there is plenty of work that looks like play, 
standards of excellence which he can appreciate, 
rules of conduct which he must obey, positions of 
responsibility which he may occupy as soon as he 
qualifies himself — in a word, a program that ap- 
peals to a boy's instincts, and a method adapted to a 
boy's nature." ^ 

Influence of the leader. — Finally, it may be added 
that after recognizing the constructive positive pro- 
gram of Scouting, appealing as it does to the in- 
stincts and sentiments of boys, its ultimate moral 
and rehgious value to any particular group of boys 
" will reflect very largely the Scoutmaster's own 
personal attitude toward morahty and religion. . . . 
It is what he is that counts in this regard. ... It 
is not his primary function to teach Bible lessons and 
to deliver lectures on ethics. . . . His part is to 
live the right kind of a life with the boys and to help 
them to do the same. In this connection example 
has immeasurable weight. Usually boys do not 
imitate or emulate one whose attitudes are half- 
hearted or merely perfunctory. Religion as well as 
Scouting becomes contagious only when lived with 
enthusiasm and genuineness." ^ 

Questions and Suggestions 

I. Find out by first-hand inquiry what effect the Boy 
Scout organization is having upon the boys so organized 
in your community. 

^ James E. Russell, "Scouting Education," in Teachers College 
Record, January, 1917, pp. 6-7. 

2 Richardson and Loomis, The Boy Scout Movement Applied by the 
Church, p. 375. 



BOY SCOUTING 267 

2. Would you condemn the movement if you should 
find a number of Scouts failing to keep the Oath ? Justify 
your answer. 

3. What is there in the Scout program that the schools 
might appropriate with profit ? What is there that is 
not applicable to school work ? 

4. Compare the Scout movement with other organized 
efforts to accomplish similar results. 

5. Is there any danger of Boy Scouts becoming too 
much imbued with military ideals for their own or their 
country's good } 

6. Discuss the movement in the light of the principles 
of psychology involved, relating it especially to interest, 
instinct, habit-formation, suggestion, will. 

7. Dean Russell says, "It gives definite embodiment 
to the ideals of the school." What are those ideals .? 
Can the school not give "definite embodiment" to its 
own ideals .? Give reasons for your answer. 

References for Further Reading 

Curtis, Henry S. : The Boy Scouts. Educational Review, Vol. 
50, pp. 495-508. . ^ ^ ^ 

Curtis, Henry S. : Play and Recreation : The Boy Scouts the 
Salvation of the Village Boy, chapter x. Ginn & Co. 

Richardson and Loomis : The Boy Scout Movement Applied 
by the Church. Scribner's. 

Riis, Jacob : The Boy Scouts. Outlook, Oct. 25, 1913. 

Russell, James E. : Scouting Education. Teachers College Rec- 
ord, January, 1917. 

Snedden, David : Some Pedagogical Interpretations and Ap- 
plications of the Methods of Boy Scout Education. 
Teachers College Record, January, 1917. 

West, Andrew : Scouting as an Educational Asset, in Proceed- 
ings N. E. A. 1916, pp. 1012 ff. 



CHAPTER XIX 

MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS 

Why there is a question. — We are told that 
thirty milhons of people see motion pictures daily. 
The motion-picture house has doubtless, therefore, 
come to stay. Its thousands of patrons in every 
city attest its popularity. Casual observers can 
see, and careful studies prove, that its hold upon 
high-school students, and, to a sHghtly less extent 
upon elementary school students, is one with which 
parents and teachers must reckon. It is but a rela- 
tively small minority of school children in village 
and city who do not have the movie habit. Most 
of them see one or two shows every week, while 
many attend three, four, live, or six exhibitions 
weekly. 

The question stated. — The question of concern 
is not whether children shall go to the movies or not ; 
it is certain that they do go and will go. The vital 
question is, what kind of pictures we shall suffer 
them to see. Though in many cases there is an un- 
warranted amount of time given even to good shows 
there is nothing inherently good or bad in the movie 
as such. The good or ill effect is determined by the 
nature of the picture shown. 

In spite of the usual censorship exercised when 
pictures are first released, any thoughtful person 

268 



MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS 269 

has but to see the posters used in advertising many 
of the shows, to realize that their influence is baneful. 
The business is thoroughly commercialized. It is 
promoted in most cases to make money, and too often 
any sort of thriller is shown for the distinct purpose 
of attracting the crowd, the management knowing 
that the larger the crowd, the greater the financial 
gain. Like cheap vaudeville shows, some of them 
are coarse and degrading, tending to corrupt the 
manners, pollute the morals, and lower the ideals 
of all who see them. When nothing worse results, 
many of them tend, through low comedy and the 
highly melodramatic, to unfit their patrons for 
more intellectual, more wholesome and instructive 
forms of amusement and recreation. 

Types of pictures. — Within the past few months, 
it has been the writer's privilege to speak in a good 
many motion-picture houses as a Government 
Four-Minute-Man in the interest of the various 
campaigns for the Red Cross, Liberty Loan Bonds, 
Army Y. M. C. A. support, food conservation, and 
other movements. Incidentally, an opportunity 
was afforded thereby for observing the types of 
pictures shown in most of these houses. It is fair 
to state that some of the pictures observed are 
innocent enough of harmful effects, a few are even 
morally and intellectually helpful, but more are 
merely inane and silly. On the other hand some are 
seen to represent evil — drunkenness, duplicity, 
improper relations between the sexes, for example 
— in such a way as to make it appear inconsequential 
or funny. The effect of such an exhibition must be 
morally bad. It is possible, of course, to exhibit 



270 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

certain vices upon the screen, as upon the stage, 
without detriment to any one, but this probably 
happens only when the vice is so presented as to 
arouse in the beholder a feeling of condemnation 
for the wrong or when retributive justice is seen to 
overtake the guilty person, causing in the onlooker 
a feeling of gratitude for the outcome in the exercise 
of a world order that punishes wrongdoers and 
wrongdoing. When vice is presented in such guise 
as to seem alluring, and when it provokes nothing 
sterner than an indulgent smile, parents may well 
fear that its effect on their children will be pernicious. 

On the other hand it has been demonstrated over 
and over again, and sometimes by the commercial 
motion picture house itself, that there are exhibitions 
which, within reasonable limits, it is highly desir- 
able to have children see. In this category is to be 
found the great range of educational pictures deal- 
ing with travel, industrial processes, scientific sub- 
jects, wholesome comedy, fairy stories, and the dram- 
atization of good literature. The school and the 
home can well afford to cooperate with reputable 
houses in the effort to popularize pictures of this 
sort. Indeed, their efforts and the efforts of other 
civic bodies interested in the moral welfare of the 
community are needed in the promotion of a cam- 
paign of education that will elevate the tone of 
motion-picture shows and help them to play the part 
they are so easily capable of playing in the educa- 
tion of the young. 

Experience of one city in solving the problem. — 
In Decatur, Illinois, the schools, recognizing the 
far-reaching effects of motion pictures upon school 



MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS 271 

children, undertook to popularize pictures of the 
right sort. Though somewhat similar attempts 
have been made in a number of cities, the Decatur 
plan may be of interest. Hence the following ac- 
count of it. 

Through the cooperation of a number of indi- 
viduals and civic organizations, a good motion- 
picture machine was bought and properly installed 
in a fireproof booth in the high-school auditorium. 
For two or three years after this, good educational 
reels were rented from time to time for a day, and 
all, or nearly all, the pupils of the whole city were 
brought by their teachers to the high school for the 
exhibition, which was given to them free of cost. 
Omitting the children of the first two grades, it 
required five exhibitions of the same pictures in a 
day (two in the morning, two in the afternoon, and 
one in the evening) to accommodate them. 

Such exhibitions were later discontinued because 
they demoralized the regular work of every school- 
room for almost half a day, and because no reel 
was found to be interesting alike to children from 
the third grade to the twelfth. 

A second experiment. — Two years ago a new 
experiment was tried. Found to be successful, it 
has been continued. Again reels were rented by 
the schools for a day, and the exhibitions given 
Saturday afternoons and evenings in the high-school 
auditorium. The cooperation of the fourteen par- 
ent-teacher associations was secured, and they took 
turns in having charge of the sale of tickets, usher- 
ing, and other matters in connection with the shows. 
A five-cent admission fee was charged. The paid 



272 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

admissions ranged from 200 to 800 each Saturday, 
but a large number of free tickets were regularly 
given to children known to be too poor to pay the 
small admission fee. 

From the titles of the reels used the past two 
years the character of the pictures may be inferred. 
The influence of objectionable pictures was elim- 
inated by substitution. It will be observed that a 
large number of the legends, fairy tales, and other 
stories having a place in the Hterary work of the 
schools was used. To this extent the exhibitions 
easily correlated with the regular work in reading, 
story-telling, and dramatization, and the teachers 
so used them. Other reels were travel, industrial, 
or in other respects educational, reenforcing the 
regular work in nature study, geography, and 
language. A few were merely innocently comic, 
with nothing better, but nothing worse, than the 
merriment caused to recommend them. To most 
teachers the titles given will indicate the character 
of the picture. 



Shown during the School Year 1915-1916 

1. Snow White, Hunting in Crazyland 

2. Robin Hood, Trained Seals 

3. Wizard of Oz 

4. Rumpelstiltskin 

5. Heart of a Princess, Elephant Circus 

6. Robinson Crusoe 

7. Hansel and Gretel, Five Senses, When the Lily Died 

8. Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp, Goldie Locks 

9. Sleeping Beauty, Gretchen 



MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS 273 

10. The Lady of the Lake, Puss in Well 

11. Little Lord Fauntleroy 

12. Rip Van Winkle 

13. Treasure Island, Three Wishes 

14. Taming of the Shrew, Little Shepherd 

15. Goose Girl 

16. Cinderella 

17. Patchwork Girl of Oz 

18. Ivanhoe 

19. Washington at Valley Forge 

20. William Tell 

Shown during the School Year 1916-1917 

1. Sport and Travel in Central Africa 

2. Rags 

3. Wrestling, By Parcel Post, Manufacture of Paper 

4. Ragamuffin 

5. Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, Quarantined, Manu- 

facture of Varnish, Grand Canyon, 'Twas the 
Night Before Christmas 

6. Mollie Make-Believe 

7. The Prince and the Pauper 

8. Manufacture of Big Guns, Close of the American 

Revolution, Lumbering in China and Canada, 
Pineapple, General of the Future 

9. Hulda of Holland- 

10. Fairies' Hallowe'en, Aix-les-Bains, Peeps into Italy, 

Thames, Scotland, Cornwall, Landing of the 
Pilgrims 

11. Silas Marner 

12. Making Rope, Malay Capitol, Swiss Customs, Ani- 

mals of South America, Interesting Scenes from 
Abroad, Rubber Industry 

13. Scrooge, Nicholas Nickleby 

14. Boy Blue, Such a Princess 



274 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

15. Making Modern Shoes, Argentine to Chile, Alps, 

Ice in Sweden, Coasting and Skiing, Dogs 

16. Little Napoleon, The Shepherd's Flute, The Acrobatic 

Monkey 

17. Uncle Tom's Cabin 

18. Silks and Satins 

19. Pinocchio, Swallowed by the Deep 

20. The Foundling 

A third experiment. — For the past semester a 
new experiment has been tried in the Decatur schools 
in the use of motion pictures. A high-school civics 
class, under the direction of a progressive teacher 
who seizes every opportunity to vitalize his sub- 
ject, is bringing a series of valuable films to the 
school from week to week, and exhibiting them in 
the high-school auditorium during the two luncheon 
periods, 11 : 30 to i : 30. Students with ten, fifteen, 
or more minutes to spend after their lunch is eaten, 
may step into the auditorium, be seated, entertained 
and instructed, relieve the corridors of their con- 
gestion and necessary attendant disorder, and 
thus improve the morale of the whole school. The 
motion-picture programs are usually given three 
times a week under the direct management of a 
committee of students from the civics department. 
This committee was organized with a chairman, a 
subchairman, head usher, eight assistant ushers, a 
musician, stage manager, machine operator, and 
secretary. Students are seated in the auditorium 
with a view to direct supervision — the boys in 
sections reserved for them and the girls in other 
sections exclusively reserved for their use. Stu- 
dents are permitted to enter at any time, but may 



MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS 275 

leave only at the end of a recitation period. At- 
tendance in all cases is wholly optional. 

The aim is to supplement the vocational guidance 
activities of the school with actual pictures of vo- 
cations in the industries and social service, mis- 
sions, the professions, transportation, the consular 
service, city planning, etc. ; to bring to students a 
broader conception of community, national, and 
world relations through the travel films covering 
every nation on the globe ; to compete with the 
commercialized films which call out the coarser 
emotions, by substituting films drawn from the 
realm of literature, fairy tales, folklore, and pure 
humor, which stimulate the best emotions in stu- 
dents and develop in them a discriminating taste 
for the best. The aim is further to provide another 
activity wherein the civics students may function 
without remuneration as good citizens in the in- 
terest of a community project — in this case, the 
community being the high school — and to demon- 
strate how cooperation may bring the best things to 
a community at a minimum of expense. 

Two reels of 1000 feet each were shown usually. 
On days of special programs as many as four reels 
of 1000 feet each would be shown. 

Community singing was introduced the last month 
of the semester. Led by the High School Glee 
Clubs under the direction of the head of the music 
department, the students sing from words thrown 
upon the screen the standard patriotic songs sent 
out by the National Committee on Cornmunity 
Sings. The response is always hearty, dignified, 
patriotic. 



276 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Films are shown with the accompaniment of the 
best selections from world masters played on a good 
player piano owned by the public schools. The 
general tone created by this music is high and pure. 
The attention of the students is uniformly respect- 
ful. 

Still slides showing the President, the Governor, 
the Flag, the Capitol, American statesmen, mes- 
sages from the food administration, etc., are shown 
before each program. Each is roundly applauded. 



Program for the Semester 

1. Canadian Rockies — A travel film (1000 ft.) 

Pure Foods — A trip through the Battle Creek Plant 
(1000 ft.) 

2. From the Pine Forests to the Home — A trip through 

the Long-Bell Lumber Company (4000 ft.) 

3. Hearst-Pathe News — Current events in all parts of 

the world (1000 ft.) 
Ford Educational Weekly — A trip to Denver, 
Colorado (1000 ft.) 

4. From Cow to Consumer — A trip through the Bor- 

den Condensed Milk Plant and Great Farms (4000 

ft-). 

5. A Trip Through the Overland Automobile Factory 

(4000 ft.) 

6. Pleasure Side of Life in Australia — A travel film 

(1000 ft.) 
Salmon Industry on the Pacific Coast — Ford Edu- 
cational Weekly (1000 ft.) 

7. Hearst-Pathe News — Current events in all parts of 

the world (1000 ft.) 
Irrigation in Canada — Travel film (1000 ft.) 



MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS 



277 



8. A Trip to Indianapolis — Ford Educational Weekly 

(1000 ft.) 
Making of Matches — A trip through the Red Crown 
Plant (1000 ft.) 

9. A Trip Through the Studebaker Factory — Manufac- 

ture of automobiles (2000 ft.) 

10. Life in Normandy — A travel film through France 

(1000 ft.) 
A trip to St. Augustine, Florida (1000 ft.) 

11. A Trip Through the Ford Factory (2000 ft.) 

The Ford Idea in Education — Showing the making 
of American citizens in the Ford Plant (1000 ft.) 

Safety First — How the Ford Motor Company pro- 
tects its employees (looo ft.) 

12. Reunion of the Grand Army of the Republic at 

Vicksburg — Ford Educational Weekly (1000 ft.) 
Hearst-Pathe News — Current events in all parts of 
the world (1000 ft.) 

13. From Sheep to a Suit of Clothes — The wool industry 

(1000 ft.) 
How to Set Your Table — Manufacture of silverware 
(1000 ft.) 

14. A Trip Through Yosemite Park — Ford Educational 

Weekly (1000 ft.) 
Modern Railroading — The Pennsylvania Railroad 
Company (1000 ft.) 

15. "Jack and the Beanstalk — Ford Educational Weekly 

(500 ft.) 
Making of Bread — A trip through the National 
Biscuit Co. (1000 ft.) 

16. The Pacific Northwest — Travel film (lOOO ft.) 
Hearst-Pathe News — Current events in all parts of 

the world (1000 ft.) 

17. Farming with Dynamite — A trip through the Du- 

pont Plant and demonstrations of explosives on 
the farm (1000 ft.) 



278 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Glimpses of Buenos Aires — A travel film (800 ft.) 

18. Making of Crepe Paper (1000 ft.) 
Manufacture of Hershey Chocolates (1000 ft.) 

19. A Trip through Los Angeles — Travel film (1000 ft.) 
A Trip to New Orleans — Ford Educational Weekly 

(1000 ft.) 

20. The Vicar of Wakefield — In four parts (4000 ft.) 

21. Travels in Indo-China (4000 ft.) 

22. From Ore to Lead Pipe — With lecturer from Na- 

tional Tube Co. (4000 ft.) 

The pictures were shown gratis. The only ex- 
pense involved, other than the regular fees paid the 
licensed operator in the employ of the school, was 
the express charges, which averaged twenty-one 
and one-half cents per thousand feet of films. 

The films were secured from four distinct sources : 

1. The Bureau of Commercial Economics, Washington 

2. The Ford Motor Company, St. Louis 

3. Individual industries 

4. Local motion-picture theaters and studios 

The Bureau of Commercial Economics is an as- 
sociation of the governments, institutions, manu- 
facturers, producers, and transportation lines of 
America and other countries, to engage in dissemi- 
nating geographical, commercial, industrial, and vo- 
cational information by " the graphic method of 
motography," showing how things in common use 
are made or produced, and under what conditions. 

The Bureau displays its reels and slides in univer- 
sities, colleges, technical and agricultural schools, 
public libraries, state armories, high schools, people's 
institutes, public institutions, state granges, settle- 



MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS 279 

ment houses, missions, chambers of commerce, 
boards of trade, commercial clubs, rotary clubs, 
trade conventions, welfare forums by corporations, 
fraternal organizations ; also with powerful pro- 
jectors, operated from auto trucks, in parks, play- 
grounds, rural communities, and other centers for 
the general welfare of the public. 

The films are lent to such institutions gratis, with 
the special provisions, however, that express charges 
be assumed one way by the institution receiving the 
films ; and that the admission to the public be free. 
For large audiences the Bureau agrees to provide, 
without expense, special lecturers on current sub- 
jects and banking. 

The Ford Motor Company, St. Louis, sends out 
to educational institutions in the Mississippi Valley, 
gratis, an Educational Weekly which covers the same 
field as the films of the Bureau of Commercial 
Economics with the addition of a large proportion 
of current events films. These films are wonder- 
fully artistic in make-up, and are easily the features 
of our motion-picture programs. The subjects are 
not announced in advance, but the films are sent 
out from the St. Louis office each week. The 
current events films recently featured the army 
cantonments, scenes in Washington, D. C, great 
conventions and parades in cities over the country; 
city planning as indicated in the leading cities of 
the world ; trips to literary shrines in America ; 
trips through America's most beautiful parks. 

Individual industries such as the Ford Motor 
Company, Detroit ; Long-Bell Lumber Company, 
Kansas City, Mo. ; John B. Stetson Company, 



28o MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Philadelphia ; Lamb-Fish Lumber Company, Charles- 
ton, Miss. ; United Shoe Machinery Company, 
Boston, Mass. ; and others, send out as a rule 
very interesting and artistic films showing the 
processes in their individual plants. That of the 
Ford Motor Company is by far the most interesting 
and comprehensive film we have seen. It covers 
every phase of modern industrial efficiency with 
special stress on the general welfare note which is 
characteristic of the Ford plant. Their English 
school is an admirable lesson in citizen-making. 
Their " safety " film covers every phase of the 
governmental regulations for safety devices in manu- 
facturing plants. 

The following very brief summary of the semester's 
work may be suggestive to other schools : 

Total number of programs 22 

Total number of feet of films exhibited . . . 56,300 

Total express charges ^12 

Total attendance 18,700 

The daily average attendance 850 

The highest attendance in one day 1,200 

(at which the Vicar of Wakefield was shown) 

Total cost per student in grand total attendance 
was less than a fourth of a cent. 

While it is too early to pronounce on such an 
experiment as that which has just been described, 
there is almost every reason for believing that it 
marks a great forward step in the elevation of 
motion-picture shows and their utilization for educa- 
tional ends. It is hardly conceivable that the hun- 



MOTION PICTURES AND MORALS 281 

dreds of young people from the high school and junior 
high school, who see these exhibitions weekly, will 
long be content with the cheap, sensational, vulgar, 
or fatuous sort of picture too often exhibited by the 
commercial houses. 

Conclusion. —In conclusion it should be remarked, 
however, that in many cities the commercial picture 
houses have been induced to make a feature of edu- 
cational films certain days of the week. In such 
cases, through the cooperation of the pubHc school 
authorities, the school children are directed and 
encouraged to patronize these shows. The result 
is an elevation of the character of the shows, a pros- 
perous business for the managers, and wholesome 
recreation for the children. Indeed, most pro- 
prietors of moving-picture houses are willing and 
even glad to furnish worth-vv^hile films when they 
learn that the pubHc demand it, and their just claim 
is that they give the people just what they want. 

Note: The writer acknowledges his obligation to Mr. 
William C. Casey, instructor in civics in the Decatur 
High School, for an excellent report of the motion-picture 
programs given under direction of his class. He has drawn 
freely from the facts in this report and in several para- 
graphs has used the language of Mr. Casey. 

Questions and Suggestions 

1. Find the extent to which your children or pupils 
have the "movie" habit. 

2. What do you know of the character of the pictures 
shown in your neighborhood ? Are the picture houses 
safe from a sanitary standpoint .? 



282 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

3. Is any organization — woman's club, parent-teacher 
association, or other agency — actively interested in se- 
curing good pictures for your community ? 

4. Have you had experience with motion pictures in 
your school ? If so, what use have you made of them ? 
What objections, if any, have you to their use ? 

5. Study the list of reels mentioned in this chapter and 
estimate the merit and demerit of each. List other sub- 
jects or reels that you think profitable for children. 

6. Do motion pictures have a moral value for children 
when they are merely unmoral in their nature — neither 
immoral in their effects, nor meant to teach a distinct 
moral lesson .? 



CHAPTER XX 

MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 

The Bible as literature. — In another chapter we 
have discussed the teaching of moraUty through 
Kterature. The field is a wide one and the possi- 
biHties are boundless. Within its scope we might 
include the Bible, for we find in it most of the im- 
portant types of literature — biography, lyric and 
epic poetry, short story, allegory, parable, drama, 
history, etc. The influence of the Bible, particu- 
larly the King James version of it, upon the develop- 
ment of the English language and literature, has 
been attested by critics for generations. The best 
in Kterature is so full of biblical allusions that it 
is hardly inteUigible except to one who has con- 
siderable famiharity with characters and incidents 
drawn from the Scriptures. Many great writers, 
indeed, acknowledge that their style has been 
created largely by their Bible study. 

Influence of the Bible upon literature. — Ruskm, 
e.g., says, in PrcBterita, Chapter I : 

"My mother forced me, by steady toil, to learn long 
chapters of the Bible by heart ; as well as to read it every 
syllable through, aloud, hard names and all, from Genesis 
to the Apocalypse, about once a year; and to that dis- 
cipline — patient, accurate, and resolute — I owe, not 

283 



284 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

only a knowledge of the book which I find occasionally 
serviceable, but much of my general power of taking 
pains, and the best part of my taste in literature." 

Some literary masterpieces, such as Paradise Lost, 
e.g., involve not merely allusions to biblical char- 
acters and incidents, but their very warp and woof, 
their form and spirit and teaching are unintelligible 
apart from their biblical basis. 

Dante's Divine Comedy gives a medieval concep- 
tion of hell, purgatory, and heaven, based upon a 
biblical theme, whatever one may think today of 
the naive understanding of the writer. 

Goethe's Faust profoundly sets forth scriptural 
teachings, and shows wherein knowledge, power, 
culture, self-indulgence, fail to satisfy the deeper 
longings of the human soul. 

Paul's teaching that " the wages of sin is death " 
has been a favorite theme of more recent writers, 
the great tragedies of Shakespeare — Hamlet, Mac- 
beth, and King Lear, being among the best illustra- 
tions of this teaching, which has a place in the Eng- 
lish courses of high school and college today. 

No other people has produced a body of literature 
so saturated with the moral and religious spirit as 
that which the Hebrews gave us. They may be 
said to have had a genius for religion, as the Greeks 
had for art and philosophy, and the Romans for 
organization and practical affairs. Through the 
Bible they have been able to communicate to other 
peoples for successive centuries their own exalted 
ideas of Jehovah, of man's relation to him, and the 
reciprocal duties of man to man. 



MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 285 

Practical objections to the use of the Bible in 
school. — Though it is almost universally recognized 
that the Bible is superior to all other books as a 
textbook for the teaching of morals and religion, 
there are certain very practical objections to its in- 
discriminate use in the public schools. The most 
important of these is the legal one. In some states 
legislation actually prohibits its use in schools sup- 
ported by pubhc taxation. The reason is obvious. 
Certain well-marked theological and sectarian differ- 
ences, involving both creed and ritual, have devel- 
oped from differences in interpretation of the Bible. 
Men have always been sensitive on these points. 
In many states, therefore, all use of the Bible in the 
public schools has been prohibited that no child 
might be exposed to interpretations and teachings 
offensive to his parents' belief. 

Possible uses. — On the other hand, there are 
portions of the Bible presenting through character, 
incident, and didactic teaching just such duties as 
ought to be impressed on all children, and doing it 
more effectively than it can be done through any 
other material accessible to teachers or parents. It 
is a great misfortune to children not to become 
familiar with them, either in home or school. To 
indicate some of the more valuable portions of the 
Bible for the teaching of morals acceptable to all, 
regardless of sect or creed, is the aim of the follow- 
ing pages of this chapter. 

It may be said in advance that the danger of 
giving offense to people of conflicting religious be- 
Hefs through well-selected Bible readings, even in 
school, is much more fanciful than real. In twelve 



286 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

years of service as a high-school principal, with fre- 
quent assembhes of high-school pupils and teachers, 
in some of which the two great divisions of the 
Christian church were almost equally represented, 
the writer never heard a word of criticism of the 
character of an exercise, however frequently it in- 
volved a reading of some scriptural passage. 

Importance of wisdom. — In the Book of Prov- 
erbs are many expressions declaring the importance 
of wisdom. Such passages tend to dignify the work 
of the school and to show the importance of its work 
as compared with other things which children desire 
and for which they are tempted too often to sacrifice 
an education. 

"Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man 
that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it 
is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain 
thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies : 
and all the things thou canst desire are not to be com- 
pared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand; 
and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are 
ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She 
is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her : and 
happy is every one that retaineth her. The Lord by 
wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath 
he established the heavens. By his knowledge the depths 
are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew. My 
son, let not them depart from thine eyes : keep sound 
wisdom and discretion : So shall they be life unto thy 
soul, and grace to thy neck." 

Respect for parents. — Respect for parents was a 
moral trait which had a large place in the training 



MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 287 

given to children in the Jewish homes of ancient 
times. Young Americans begin very early to think 
that the '\ Old Man " and the " Old Woman " are 
well meaning enough, but hardly up to date. Both 
the Old and the New Testament offer an antidote 
for this tendency in such teachings and admonitions 
as these : 

"My son, keep the commandment of thy father and 
forsake not the law of thy mother. Bind them continually 
upon thy heart ; tie them about thy neck." Proverbs i : 

8-9. 

"A wise son maketh a glad father; but a foolish son 
is the heaviness of his mother." Proverbs 15 : 20. 

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is 
right. Honor thy father and mother (which is the first 
commandment with promise) that it may be well with 
thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth." Ephe- 
sians 6 : 1-2. 

Laziness and improvidence. — Laziness and im- 
providence are effectively contrasted with industry 
and providence in Proverbs : 

"I went by the field of the sluggard. 
And by the vineyard of the man void of understanding ; 
And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns. 
The face thereof was covered with nettles. 
And the stone wall thereof was broken down. 
Then I beheld and considered well ; 
I saw and received instruction. . . . 

"Go to the ant, thou sluggard ; 
Consider her ways and be wise : 



288 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Which having no chief, 
Overseer, or ruler, 
Provideth her bread in the summer, 
And gathereth her food in the harvest. 
How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard ? 
When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep ? 
Yet a little more sleep, a little slumber, 
A Httle folding of the hands to sleep ; 
So shall thy poverty come as a robber, 
And thy want as an armed man." 

"And let us not be weary in well-doing; for in due 
season we shall reap, if we faint not." Galatians 5 : 9. 

The evils resulting from the use of alcoholic drinks 
were proclaimed as a v^arning to youth in these 
words : 

*'Who hath woe.? Who hath sorrow.? Who hath con- 
tentions ? 

Who hath complaining ? Who hath wounds without 
cause ? 

Who hath redness of eyes ? 

They that tarry long at the wine. 

Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, 

When it sparkleth in the cup. 

When it goeth down smoothly. 

At last it biteth like a serpent. 

And stingeth like an adder." Proverbs. ^ 

The Golden Rule, " Whatsoever ye would that 
men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them," 
deserves teaching to all children. Its application 
to life does more than anything else can do to lessen 
friction between man and man. The conflict be- 



MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 289 

tween capital and labor is minimized just to the 
extent that this rule is appreciated and appKed. 

" Ye that are strong ought to bear the infirmities 
of the weak." This is a social leaven which is slowly 
leavening the lump of society. 

Paul closes one of his letters to an early church 
with the following admonition, the epitome of all 
moral instruction, and the clearest statement of 
its psychology as well : 

"Finally, my brethren, whatsoever things are true, 
Whatsoever things are honorable. 
Whatsoever things are just, 
Whatsoever things are pure. 
Whatsoever things are lovely, 
Whatsoever things are of good report ; 
If there be any virtue. 
And if there be any praise, 
Think on these things.'^ 

Mutual relationships. — In teaching children the 
mutual relationship that members of a home, a 
school, a church, a neighborhood, or a state sustain 
to each other, and the reciprocal duties imposed, the 
parable of the Body and its Members may well be 
used. 

"The body is not one member, but many. If the foot 
shall say. Because I am not the hand, I am not of the 
body ; it is not therefore not of the body. And if the 
ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the 
body; it is not therefore not of the body. If the whole 
body were an eye, where were the hearing .? If the whole 
were hearing, where were the smelling .? But now hath 
God set the members each one of them in the body, even 



290 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

as it pleased him. And if they were all one member, where 
were the body ? But now they are many members, but 
one body. 

'*And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need 
of thee : or again the head to the feet, I have no need of 
you. Nay, much rather, those members of the body 
which seem to be more feeble are necessary : and those 
parts of the body, which we think to be less honorable, 
upon these we bestow more abundant honor; and our 
uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness ; whereas 
our comely parts have no need : but God tempered the 
body together, giving more abundant honor to that part 
which lacked ; that there should be no schism in the 
body; but that the members should have the same care 
one for another. And whether one member sufFereth, 
all the members suffer with it ; or one member is honored, 
all the members rejoice with it." 

Neighborliness. — The parable of the Good Sa- 
maritan teaches a lesson of such universal need that 
it may v^ell find a place among the moral lessons 
of the public schools. 

"A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to 
Jericho ; and he fell among robbers, who both stripped 
him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. 
And by chance a certain priest was going down that way : 
and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 
And in like manner a Levite also, when he came to the 
place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. 

"But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where 
he was : and when he saw him, he was moved with com- 
passion, and came to him, and bound up his wounds, 
pouring on them oil and wine; and he set him on his own 
beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 
And on the morrow he took out two shillings, and gave 



MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 291 

them to the host, and said, Take care of him ; and what- 
soever thou spendest more, I, when I come back again, 
will repay thee. 

"Which of these three, thinkest thou, proved neighbor 
unto him that fell among the robbers ? And he said, He 
that showed mercy on him." 

In the Old Testament are stories of numerous char- 
acters which children should know. Many of the 
stories need to be recast ; some should be expur- 
gated ; some ought to be omitted. The rich variety 
of moral lessons which can easily be taught by the 
skillful teacher who knows how to analyze them and 
present them in paraphrase is nowhere more striking 
than here. Adam and Eve, their disobedience, 
consciousness of guilt, and expulsion from Paradise 
in punishment; Cain and Abel and the warning to 
children of all generations that one can not lightly 
set aside the duty he owes his brother ; the beauty of 
conduct exhibited by Abraham in yielding a portion 
of his rights for the sake of harmony with his kins- 
man Lot; the maternal affection of Hagar for her 
child ; the beauty of hospitality toward strangers 
as illustrated in the story of Rebecca at the Well; 
the friendship between David and Jonathan ; the 
love of a father even for an unworthy son, as shown 
in the story of David and Absalom — all of these 
and scores of others present moral pictures from 
which moral principles and ethical standards may be 
easily drawn. 

A method illustrated. — But whether in home, or 
Sunday school or public school, he who would use 
these stories for the instruction of children is often 
puzzled with the question of selection, of analysis, 



292 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

and of method. Because I have seen no saner treat- 
ment of them than that given by Adler in his book, 
which was more widely read nearly a generation ago, 
I venture to quote his Jacob Cycle as an illustration 
of their possibilities in the hands of a wise teacher. 

"What treatment shall Jacob receive at our hands, he, 
the sly trickster, who cheats his brother of his birthright 
and steals a father's blessing ? Yet he is one of the 
patriarchs, and is accorded the honorable title of 'champion 
of God.' To hold him up to the admiration of the young 
is impossible. To gloss over his faults and try to explain 
them away were a sorry business, and honesty forbids. 
The Bible itself gives us the right clew. His faults are 
nowhere disguised. He is represented as a person who 
makes a bad start in life — a very bad start, indeed — 
but who pays the penalty of his wrong-doing. His is a 
story of penitential discipline. 

*'In telling the story, all reference to the duplicity of 
Rebecca should be omitted, for the same reason that 
malicious stepm.others and cruel fathers have been ex- 
cluded from the fairy tales. 

*'The points to be discussed may be summarized as 
follows : 

** Taking advantage of a brother in distress. — Jacob 
purchases the birthright for a mess of pottage. 

" Tender attachment to a helpless old father. — Esau 
goes out hunting to supply a special delicacy for his 
father's table. This is a point which children will ap- 
preciate. Unable to confer material benefits on their 
parents, they can only show their love by slight attentions. 

^^ Deceit. — Jacob simulates the appearance of his older 
brother and steals the blessing. In this connection it 
will be necessary to say that a special power was supposed 
to attach to a father's blessing, and that the words once 
spoken were deemed irrevocable. 



MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 



293 



^'^ Jacobs penitential discipline begins. — The deceiver 
is deceived, and made to feel in his own person the pain 
and disappointment which deceit causes. He is re- 
peatedly cheated by his master Laban, especially in the 
matter which is nearest to him, his love for Rachel. 

*' The forgiveness of injuries. — Esau's magnanimous 
conduct toward his brother. 

" The evil consequences of tale-bearing and conceit. — 
It is a significant fact that Joseph is not a mere coxcomb. 
He is a man of genius, as his later career proves, and the 
stirrings of his genius manifest themselves in his early 
dreams of future greatness. Persons of this description 
are not always pleasant companions, especially in their 
youth. They have not yet accomplished anything to 
warrant distinction, and yet they feel within themselves 
the presentiment of a destiny and of achievements above 
the ordinary. Their faults, their arrogance, their seem- 
ingly preposterous claims, are not to be excused, but 
neither is the envy they excite excusable. One of the 
hardest things to learn is to recognize without envy the 
superiority of a brother. 

^^ Moral cowardice. — Reuben is guilty of moral coward- 
ice. He was an opportunist, who sought to accomplish 
his ends by diplomacy. If he, as the oldest brother, had 
used his authority and boldly denounced the contemplated 
crime, he might have averted the long train of miseries 
that followed. 

^^ Strength and depth of paternal love. — 'Joseph is no 
more : an evil beast has devoured him. I will go mourn- 
ing for my son Joseph into the grave.' It is a piece 
of poetic justice that Jacob, who deceived his father in 
the matter of the blessing by covering himself with the 
skin of a kid, is himself deceived by the blood of a kid 
of the goats with which the coat of Joseph had been 
stained. 

"In speaking of the temptation of Joseph in the house 



294 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

of Potiphar, it is enough to say. that the wife conspired 
against her husband, and endeavored to induce Joseph 
to betray his master. A pretty addition to the story is 
to be found in the Talmud, to the effect that Joseph 
saw in imagination the face of his father before him in 
the moment of temptation, and was thereby strengthened 
to resist. 

" The light of a superior mind can not be hidden even in a 
prison. — Joseph wins the favor of his fellow-prisoners, 
and an opportunity is thus opened to him to exercise 
his talents on the largest scale. 

^'Affliction chastens. — The famine had in the mean- 
time spread to Palestine. The shadow of the grief for 
Joseph still lay heavily on the household of the patriarch. 
Joseph is lost ; shall Benjamin, too, perish .? It is pleasant 
to observe that the character of the brothers in the mean- 
time has been changed for the better. There is evidently 
a lurking sense of guilt and a desire to atone for it in the 
manner in which Judah pledges himself for the safety of 
the youngest child. And the same marked change is 
visible in the conduct of all the brothers on the journey. 
The stratagem of the cup was cunningly devised to test 
their feelings. They might have escaped by throwing 
the blame on Benjamin. Instead of that, they dread 
nothing so much as that he may have to suffer, and are 
willing to sacrifice everything to save him. When this 
new spirit has become thoroughly apparent, the end to 
which the whole group of Jacob stories pointed all along 
is reached ; the work of moral regeneration is complete. 
Jacob himself has been purified by affliction, and the 
brothers and Joseph have been developed by the same 
hard taskmaster into true men. The scene of recognition 
which follows, when the great vice-regent orders his 
attendants from the apartment and embraces those who 
once attempted his life, with the words, 'I am Joseph, 
your brother: does my father still live?' is touching in 



MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 295 

the extreme, and the whole ends happily in a blaze of 
royal pomp, like a true Eastern tale. 

"A word as to the method which should be used in 
teaching these stories. If the fairy tale holds the moral 
element in solution, if the fable drills the pupil in dis- 
tinguishing one moral trait at a time, the biblical stories 
exhibit a combination of moral qualities, or, more pre- 
cisely, the interaction of moral causes and effects ; and 
it is important for the teacher to give expression to this 
difference in the manner in which he handles the stories. 
Thus, in the fables we have simply one trait, like ingrati- 
tude, and its immediate consequences. The snake bites 
the countryman, and is cast out; there the matter ends. 
In the story of Joseph we have, first, the partiality of the 
father, which produces or encourages self-conceit in the 
son ; Joseph's conceit produces envy in the brothers. 
This envy reacts on all concerned — on Joseph, who in 
consequence is sold into slavery; on the father, who is 
plunged into inconsolable grief; on the brothers, who 
nearly become murderers. The servitude of Joseph de- 
stroys his conceit and develops his nobler nature. In- 
dustry, fidelity, and sagacity raise him to high power. 
The sight of the constant affliction of their father on 
account of Joseph's loss mellows the hearts of the brothers, 
etc. It is this interweaving of moral causes and effects 
that gives to the stories their peculiar value. They are 
true moral pictures ; and, like the pictures used in or- 
dinary object lessons, they serve to train the power of 
observation. Trained observation, however, is the in- 
dispensable preliminary of correct moral judgment." ^ 

Use of quotations. — Many teachers have the com- 
mendable habit of v^riting on the blackboard in the 
front of the schoolroom a verse from the Bible 

^ Moral Instruction of Children, chapter ix, pp. 126-130. 



296 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

which they leave for a few days and then replace by 
another, or by a sentence from some other source, 
emphasizing some moral virtue or truth. The teacher 
may never know the extent to which seed thus sown 
is ultimately to germinate, spring up, and bear 
fruit. But I remember well the pleasure one such 
teacher had in telling me of the testimony of a former 
pupil in his country school. The teacher and pupil 
met after a separation of twenty years. In the course 
of their conversation the former pupil said : 

" Do you remember the commandment you had 
on the blackboard for a week — ^Remember now 
thy Creator in the days of thy youth ' ? Well,*' he 
said, *'that marked the beginning of my Christian 
life, though you never made a comment upon the 
verse, and you never knew that it was responsible 
for any change in my life/^ 

Jesus as a teacher. ^ The life of Jesus, wholly 
apart from the mooted questions concerning his 
birth, his resurrection, his ascension, and his inter- 
cession for man in the forgiveness of sin, is still one 
of such singular beauty, purity, and power, that its 
story ought to be the heritage of every child in 
Christendom. His childhood spent in growth " in 
stature, in wisdom, in favor with God and man " ; 
His long preparation for three short years of service; 
His ministry to man in healing the sick, opening the 
eyes of the blind, unstopping deaf ears, cleansing 
lepers, making the halt and the cripple to walk, de- 
nouncing hypocrisy, rebuking evildoers, eating with 
publicans and sinners ; His attitude towards the 
Sabbath day, towards marriage, towards rulers in 
authority, towards little children, towards His 



MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 297 

enemies ; His teaching, by precept and example, of 
the lessons of humility, service, sincerity, and love 
— love for God and love for man, for his brother and 
his neighbor : these are all moral lessons which rise 
above creed and make Him an example and an in- 
spiration to youth always and everywhere. 

Influence of the Bible upon civilization. — It 
would unduly lengthen this chapter to specify the 
helpful passages and incidents that might well be 
taken from the Bible to give moral instruction void 
of offense to child, teacher, or parent. It is in place, 
however, to be reminded of the fact that the Bible 
has been the concomitant and usually the inspiration 
of the great forward steps the civilized nations have 
taken since the advent of Christ. One may find the 
proof of this statement in the best architecture of 
the world today — its churches, temples, and ca- 
thedrals ; in the art galleries of Europe and America, 
with their masterpieces of Christian conception ; in 
the sacred hymns, cantatas, and oratorios compris- 
ing the best which music knows today; in the dig- 
nity of Christian womanhood as contrasted with the 
degradation of woman in lands not yet under its in- 
fluence ; in the recognition of children's rights and 
the dominant place they occupy among all Christian 
peoples ; and in the increasing tendency of the strong, 
the rich, and the fortunate to bear the burdens of 
the weak, the poor, and the unfortunate in Europe 
and America. Where the Bible goes art is inspired, 
education is encouraged, asylums spring up, marriage 
becomes a sacrament, woman becomes man's equal, 
and children are accorded a central place in parental 
aflFection and family life. 



298 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Its teaching and influence, especially those of the 
New Testament, all tend towards the purest of 
domestic relationships, a mutually helpful relation 
between masters and servants, a proper use of 
money, due obedience to the state and its civil rep- 
resentatives, and the promotion of every wise form 
of benevolent, philanthropic, and humanitarian work 
which social needs suggest. Whatever differences in 
creed may find their basis in its teachings, its moral 
precepts and social mandates scarcely admit more 
than one interpretation. In no other book that has 
yet appeared is there anything like the material in 
parable, illustration, story, commandment, and per- 
sonal example making clear the moral relationships of 
man to man. Viewed from the moral standpoint 
alone the whole Bible is an affirmative answer to 
Cain's indignant question, " Am I my brother's 
keeper ^ " Since it is inconceivable that any rational 
mind could wish evil for itself, the social and moral 
obligation imposed upon every one is well expressed 
in its words which for generations have been rightly 
considered the golden rule of conduct : " Whatso- 
ever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye 
even so unto them." 

Questions and Suggestions 

1. Account for the fact that the Bible was the "best 
seller" of all the books published last year. 

2. Estimate the influence the Bible has had upon the 
fine arts. 

3. Discuss the influence of the Bible upon the writings 
of Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier, Lew Wallace, Tennyson, 
Browning, Milton, Bunyan, Shakespeare. 



MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH THE BIBLE 



299 



4. Compare the moral teachings of the Bible with 
those of the sacred writings of Confucius ; the Koran. 
Think of their relative bearings upon the status of women ; 
of children ; the poor. 

5. Characterize Jesus as a Teacher, considering : 
a. His preparation. 

h. His method. 

c. His most significant teachings. 

d. His personal example. 

e. His influence upon the history of the world. 

6. Find biblical characters, incidents, and teachings 
that may well be used in showing 

a. Friendship. 

h. Paternal aflfection. 

c. Filial devotion. 

d. Obedience. 

e. The dangers of drunkenness. 
/. The rewards of industry. 

g. Indignation at evildoing. 
h. The test of neighborliness. 
i. The beauty of forgiveness, 
y. The spirit of humility. 

7. Consult some good book on "How to Tell Stories 
to Children" for suggestions on telling Bible stories. 

References for Further Reading 

Adler, Felix: Moral Instruction of Children. D. Appleton & Co. 
Athearn, Walter S. : The Church School. The Pilgrim Press. 
CoE, George Albert : Education in Morals and Religion. 

Fleming H. Revell Co. 
Galloway, T, W. : The Use of Motives in Teaching Morals and 

Religion. The Pilgrim Press. 
Horne, H. H. : Psychological Principles of Education: chapter 

XXXII, Religious Education in the Public School; and 

chapter xxxiv, The Text-Book of Religious Education. 

Macmillan Co. 
Painter, F. V. N. : Introduction to Bible Study. Benj. H. 

Sanborn & Co. 



CHAPTER XXI 

MORAL LESSONS FROM THE EUROPEAN 
WAR 

The value of physical preparedness. — The war 

has taught the American people a number of lessons 
— political, industrial, economic, and educational — 
and some of them are distinctly moral in their 
bearings. The first is this : Physical preparedness 
as truly as mihtary preparedness must go hand in 
hand with love of country and devotion to humani- 
tarian ideals and impulses in order to make the 
latter effective. The recent examination of con- 
scripts throughout the country has resulted in the 
rejection, by the examining boards, of numbers 
varying from fifteen to sixty-five per cent. The 
size of the army of the physically unfit is almost 
appalling. It is a serious reflection upon our schools 
and the results they get in physical education. It is 
already causing thoughtful school men and women 
everywhere to take an inventory of their courses and 
methods in physical training to find, if possible, how 
they can make them more helpful to the youth of the 
land. 

As some one has said in substance, there is not 
much to choose between the man who can serve his 
country when it calls, but will not, and the man who 
would serve, but, when the crisis comes, finds that 

300 



LESSONS FROM THE EUROPEAN WAR 301 

because of his neglect of himself or his earHer sins 
against his own body he can not serve. In either 
case the country goes without a defender. The 
loss is a national one. If patriotism is a virtue 
to be fostered and cherished by every citizen, 
becoming and keeping physically fit to make one's 
patriotism dynamic is a duty equally incumbent upon 
us all. To be able and willing to shoot as we shout 
is the epigrammatic statement of this duty as recently 
phrased by a most distinguished and virile patriot. 

Social vice can be made tmattractive. — Another 
lesson which the war is teaching anew is that social 
vice must and can be made unattractive to soldiers. 
In the past it has sometimes happened, in both 
Europe and America, that armies have been deci- 
mated more by venereal disease than by bullets and 
bayonets. In a pamphlet on " Prostitution in 
Relation to the Army on the Mexican Border,'' so 
eminent an authority as Dr. M. J. Exner makes the 
statement that " during the first eighteen months of 
the war, one of the great powers had more men in- 
capacitated for service by venereal disease contracted 
in the mobilization camps than in all the fighting at 
the front." Today one of the most encouraging 
words which reach American homec is the assurance 
of General Pershing and others in command that 
vice among the soldiers is reduced to a minimum, 
and that parents need have no fear that their sons 
will come back home after the war diseased and 
debilitated from their own immoral indulgences 
while in service. 

Never in the history of civilization have such 
elaborate and costly preparations been made by a 



302 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

people to safeguard and protect the moral integrity 
of its soldiers. Never before has a government 
seemed to feel so keenly its responsibility to the men 
in service for eliminating the evils with which armies 
have hitherto been surrounded. The creation of a 
Federal Commission on Training Camp Activities 
is a notable step in the accomplishment of the gov- 
ernment's purpose. Millions of dollars have been 
raised by popular subscription and put into the 
hands of the Army Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A., Knights 
of Columbus, and other organizations charged with 
the responsibility of providing a wholesome environ- 
ment and a positive program of safe recreations for 
enlisted men. 

Music, lectures, reading rooms and libraries, box- 
ing, wrestling, bayonet exercises, and the promotion 
of every sort of athletic sport and hard physical 
game is encouraged. An appeal is made to 
competitive instincts. In some of the exercises 
everybody must take part. " Squads compete with 
squads, companies with companies, regiments with 
regiments, brigades with brigades, and divisions 
with divisions." With such a program are the 
leisure hours of the soldiers filled, and by such a 
method is the influence of vicious resorts effectually 
overcome. A further result of this army program is 
likely to be an extension of its application to the 
solution of similar problems of every neighborhood 
in times of peace. It is not enough to deplore the 
appeal which certain forms of evil make to men and 
boys, but safe and sane substitutes must be provided 
and made to utilize the surplus of their physical 
and intellectual energies. Upon an unprecedented 



LESSONS FROM THE EUROPEAN WAR 303 

scale is the world learning not to be overcome by 
evil, but to overcome evil with good. The lesson 
was taught a long, long time ago. It seems now 
about to be understood. 

Impetus of the temperance movement. — In an- 
other chapter of this book reference has been made 
to the new impetus given the temperance movement 
by the war. Although the movement has long been 
spreading, it well may be doubted whether twenty 
years of continued peace would have witnessed its 
progress at home and abroad to the extent that it 
has grown during the period of the war. While the 
list of " dry " states has been steadily increasing for 
years, the action of Congress in amending the Con- 
stitution of the United States and establishing 
national prohibition after six years, subject to 
ratification by the separate states within that 
period, came with almost precipitate suddenness as 
a result of the war. 

Whatever the extent of moral results from the 
growth of the temperance and prohibition move- 
ment, it must be admitted that one of the biggest 
factors operating to hasten it is the economic one. 
The unprecedented demands of the Entente alhes for 
food suppHes that could be furnished only by the 
United States; the necessity for food conservation 
here to supply those demands; the governmental 
regulation of the meat, wheat, and sugar consumption 
of the people— all tended to make thoughtful people 
see the absurdity of using millions of bushels of our 
grain supply in the making of alcohoHc drinks when 
such heroic measures were made necessary to keep 
our allies from positive suffering if not from actual 



304 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

starvation. The lesson learned, though imposed by 
the crisis of war, will not be wholly forgotten even 
when peace comes. 

Decorations for personal bravery. — It is popularly 
supposed that war brutahzes the individual soldier, 
and dulls his finest feelings and instincts. But this 
war, like others that have preceded it, just as truly 
affords the opportunity for an exercise of some of 
the highest and holiest impulses that men may have. 
"Greater love hath no man than this — that he 
lay down his hfe for his friend." With all its horrors 
the battlefield is daily exhibiting scores of examples 
of men of heroic mold. Their forgetfulness of self, 
their wiUingness to make any sacrifice, even of life 
itself, in volunteer service to save another man, is 
one of the finest results of every battle. 

For hundreds of years the world has delighted to 
tell the story of Sir Philip Sidney who is said to have 
pushed aside the proffered cup of water while he 
was lying feverish and wounded upon the field of 
battle, in favor of a dying soldier because, as Sir 
Phihp said, " Thy need is greater than mine." But 
this story pales into insignificance when compared 
with many of the deeds of heroism, whether noted, 
or unknown to the world, that make up a part of 
every day's program in the present war zone. 

The French have long recognized distinguished 
valor and unusual exhibitions of bravery by con- 
ferring the " croix de guerre " upon those who merit 
it. The British have, in Hke manner conferred the 
simple Victoria Cross, with its modest motto^ 
" For Valor," as the most honored and coveted 
military decoration in the world. Lately the United 



LESSONS FROM THE EUROPEAN WAR 305 

States has seen fit to give similar recognition to its 
heroes. Almost daily dispatches tell the story of 
American soldiers, some of them privates, upon 
whom the French or the British have conferred 
these badges of honor for " distinguished service " ; 
and it would be difficult to estimate the moral in- 
fluence of these deeds — deeds of "supermen, who 
without a thought of self, dash into the fiery blast 
to save a stricken comrade, or who strike a ringing 
blow for their cause under the jaws of horrid death, 
whose hands are stretched out to clutch them."^ 

Unity, cooperation, sacrifice, and service promoted. 
— One of the obvious moral fruits of the war, and 
one the most important of all, is the development 
within the nations involved of a spirit of unity, of 
cooperation, of sacrifice and service, of devotion to a 
lofty purpose and noble cause that was largely un- 
known before the war began. Men are forgetting 
their differences of creed, of politics, of social stand- 
ing, of culture, of economic status, and finding their 
common brotherhood. The appeals for Red Cross 
funds, for Y. M. C. A. support, for Belgium, for the 
Armenians, for the purchase of Liberty Loan Bonds, 
for food conservation, are all striking responsive 
chords in hearts that beat as one. When side by 
side with capitahsts and wealthy corporation heads 
who invest their millions in bonds, the day laborer 
in shop and factory, the bookkeeper and stenog- 
rapher in the office, newsboys from the street, and 
widows with their mite make personal sacrifice to 
buy a single bond from a sense of duty, there is 

* Michael McDonagh, The Irish at the Front, page 130. 



3o6 MORAL EDUCATIOrj IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

evidence enough that the fires of patriotism are 
still burning upon the altar of this country. 

Revival of religion. — But, more than that, there 
is abundant evidence that the war is even bringing 
about a revival of religion throughout Europe and 
America. In a recent magazine article Washington 
Gladden quotes Dr. Eliot as saying at the Andover 
commencement that he felt " that the underlying 
cause of the war was that no church has succeeded 
in setting forth to the world an adequate conception 
of Almighty God." Whatever the truth in this 
statement, it is comforting to know that nations 
and men who had forgotten God are now sponta- 
neously turning to him, and finding him through 
obedience to the teachings of sacrifice, service, and 
self-denial enjoined by Christ himself, the completest 
revelation of God the world has yet known. 

John R. Mott, after months spent in the war zones 
of Europe, in observation of conditions and inter- 
views with high civil and military authorities, was 
impressed with the quickened religious spirit of the 
European people and the breaking down of the 
sectarian barriers separating them. In his address 
before the N. E. A. in New York, G. Stanley Hall 
related the fact that " a grandson of Pasteur, also a 
literary star, who died heading a charge on the 
Marne, left behind him a book sold and read every- 
where, urging that no man can be a mature, com- 
plete man who is not a Christian, and that every 
true Christian is a soldier, and every true soldier a 
Christian, because both consist in finding something 
the individual would die for if called to do so." 
In the same address he quoted Bergmann as saying 



LESSONS FROM THE EUROPEAN WAR 307 

that " the chief culture effect of the war in Germany 
is the development of deep and strong religious 
feeling, and that the student soldier who went out 
with Nietzsche in his knapsack now reads the New 
Testament, the sale of which has immensely in- 
creased." 

One of the clearest statements of the change that 
has come throughout Europe and of the larger place 
given to religion in men's lives as a result of the war 
is that with which H. G. Wells makes his principal 
character to conclude his meditations in Mr. Britling 
Sees It Through. When it is remembered that Mr. 
Britling's own son lost his life in the war, the reader 
is better prepared to appreciate the following: 

"Religion is the first thing and the last thing, and 
until a man has found God and been found by God, he 
begins at no beginning, he works to no end. He may 
have his friendships, his party loyalties, his scraps of 
honor. But all these things fall into place and life falls 
into place only with God. Only with God. God who 
fights through men against Blind Force and Night and 
Non-Existence ; who is the end, who is the meaning. He 
is the only King. . . . Of course I must write about Him. 
I must tell all my world of Him. And before the coming 
of the true King, the inevitable King, the King who is 
present whenever just men foregather, this bloodstained 
rubbish of the ancient world, these puny kings and tawdry 
emperors, these wily politicians and artful lawyers, these 
men who claim and grab and trick and compel, these 
war-makers and expressors, will presently shrivel and 
pass — like paper thrust into a flame. . . .'* 

Then after a time he said : 

"Our sons who have shown us God. . . ." 



3o8 MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

While the roots of the war are usually asserted 
to be in the historic ambitions and racial and national 
differences of the nations contending, scholars have 
been wont to find its philosophic causes in the pro- 
fessorial teachings of such men as Treitschke, who 
long ago declared that it is an inexorable law of 
nature that " the strong should triumph over the 
weak," and in the writings of Nietzsche, who 
taught that " might makes right," a doctrine all 
too pleasing to the Prussian aristocracy and the 
imperial house of the HohenzoUerns. 

Clearly this doctrine has overleaped itself, and 
its antidote is being found in the Sermon on the 
Mount and the teaching and hfe of Hirn who taught 
that life means both sacrifice and service, and that 
bearing one another's burdens is the highest duty of 
nations as well as men. 

The opportunity of the school, as well as the 
church, was never so great as it is now. In spite of 
the hymns of hate that may be sung while the war 
lasts, when the nations now at war have purged 
themselves of their several degrees of selfishness and 
greed, when the baptism by fire and blood and tears 
has done its work, the schools must be ready to do 
their part in the period of reconstruction. Their 
influence must be felt from the elementary grades 
on up. They can never again be so much aloof from 
life as they have been heretofore. The grammar 
grades and high schools will continue to stress, as 
they are now beginning to do, the mutual relation- 
ships of life — community, nation, and world. 
Civics, economics, and ethics must all be taught in 
relation to history and the domestic and industrial 



LESSONS FROM THE EUROPEAN WAR 309 

arts and sciences of the present day. In so doing 
we may hope that there will be an increased develop- 
ment in the men and women of a new generation, of 
the moral judgment and the ethical will, and a 
hastening of the coming of " the Parliament of 
man, the Federation of the world." 

New work of the schools. — It is already certain 
that a period of reconstruction and readjustment, 
both within and between the nations involved, must 
follow the war. The isolation of the United States 
is gone forever. It has become not only a world- 
power but a world-leader. It must henceforth 
recognize that its destiny, for weal or woe, is in- 
exorably bound up with that of the European na- 
tions, perhaps with all other nations of the world as 
well. International relationships must be cultivated. 
These will involve the active agencies of business, 
politics, school, and church, each of which must 
bear a part of the burden of making the necessary 
changes. Out of it all is coming a new social order, 
moral in its essence, from which the common man 
must emerge, more broadly democratic, more 
tolerant, more intelligent, more disposed to look 
beneath the surface, and to recognize and pay trib- 
ute to those qualities in men and nations which 
are elemental and fundamental. In one respect, at 
least, the effect of the war will be not unlike that of 
the great crusades of the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries — men's minds and souls are growing 
larger to take in the larger world they have found. 



3IO MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

Questions and Suggestions 

1. Show the relation between physical preparedness and 
success in war. 

2. Justify the common assertion that the war is 
resulting in a development of the spirit of unity and of 
brotherhood, both among the peoples of our nation, and 
between them and those of other nations as well. 

3. Show the effect of the war upon the religion of the 
peoples engaged in it. 

4. Discuss the influence of Treitschke; of Nietzsche. 

5. Make clear the extent to which you beHeve the war 
has promoted 

a. Thrift. 

b. Industry. 

c. Sympathy. 

d. Hatred. 

e. Love for man. 
/. Patriotism. 

g. Temperance. 
h. Sex morality. 

References for Further Reading 

Barry, W. : Return of Religion. Nineteenth Century, July, 

1917. 
FosDicK, Harry Emerson: The Challenge of the Present 

Crisis. Westminster Press. 
Gannett, Rev. Dr. William C. : A New Estimate of the 

Spiritual Gains of the War. Current Opinion, July, 191 7. 
Gerard, James W. : My Four Years in Germany. George H. 

Doran. 
Hill, David Jayne : The Rebuilding of Europe. Century Co. 
Van Dyke, Henry C. : Fighting For Peace. Scribner's. 
Wells, H. G. : Mr. Britling Sees It Through. Macmillan Co. 
WisTER, Owen : The Pentecost of Calamity. Macmillan Co. 
Wood, H. G. : War and Religion. Living Age, February 24 

1917. 



INDEX 



Acts, moral, significance of personal 

examples, 96 
Aim, modern, must be composite, 

moral, not chief aim, 162 
Altruism, practical methods of 

developing, 24 
Altruistic, vs. egoistic feelings, 24 
Angell, 29 
Appearance, personal, influence of 

the teacher's, 148 
Aristotle, 194 
Arnold of Rugby, 47 
Art, Caffin's view on, 157 

for life's sake, 154 

Ruskin's view on, 155 
Art education and morality, ch. 

XI 

what makes it moral, 148 

Barton, Clara, 108 

Betts, 34 

Bible, the, as literature, 283 

influence of, upon civilization, 
297 

influence of, upon literature, 283 

Jacob cycle, 291 

made vital, 107 

moral education through, ch. xx 

mutual relationships, 289 

neighborliness, 290 

possible uses of, 285 

practical objections to the use 
of, in school, 285 

respect for parents, 286 

wisdom, importance of, 286 



Biography, appeal to children, 105 

morals through, ch. viii 
Biology, suggestions from, 70 
Bonaventure, lesson from, 42 
Boy Scouting as a factor in moral 
training, ch. xviii 
as an example of expression in 

education, 264 
illustrations of "good turns," 

261 
influence of leader, 266 
recognition of the movement by 

the N. E. A., 257 
statement of aims, 258 
Buisson, Ferdinand, 19 
Burbank, Luther, iii 

Character, a by product, 9 
Character building, the end of edu- 
cation, 14 
Chauvinism to be avoided, 100 
Child, a, lesson learned from, 107 
Childs, George W., 128 
Citizenship as an end of education, 

13 
Coleridge, 168 
Cooperation between schools and 

other educative agencies, 256 
of social forces necessary, 2 
Courtesy, 210 
Current events, moral training 

through, ch. ix 

Daily papers, 131 
Disciphnarian, good, popular esti- 
mate of, 59 



3" 



312 



INDEX 



Discipline, a difficult process, 69 
as a means to an end, 57 
good, the best guarantee of, 60 
good, what constitutes, 59 
moral education through, school, 
ch. V 

Domsie of Drumtochty, 44 

Earnings and occupations of stu- 
dents, 235 

Edison, Thomas, 112 

Education, financial value of, 231 

Efficiency, 128 

Emotional life, modern theory of, 
22 

Ethics, professional, 211 

European War, the, moral lessons 
from, ch. XXI 
unity, cooperation, sacrifice, and 
service promoted, 305 

Exner, Dr. M. J., 301 

Fidelity, 211 

Froebel, influence of, 196 

Froude, 98 

Gardening, school and home, 228 
Golden Rule, 288 
Grenfell, Doctor, 116 
Griggs, 158 

Habit formation, laws of, 30 
Habits, moral and hygienic, fos- 
tered, 203 
of a moral sort, establishing of, 27 
Hall, G. Stanley, 71 
Handicaps, 112 

Health in relation to thrift, 232 
Herbartians, the, 14 
Heroes in unromantic walks, 121 
History, American, moral involved 
in, 94 
morality through, ch. vii 
Lecky's stress on the moral as- 
pects of, 97 



History, American — Continued 
-teaching, patriotism an outcome 

of, 98 
Hodge, Clifton H., 174 
Honesty, 210 
Honor, personal, to be developed, 

247 
Home, H. H., 26 
Household budgets, 230 
Hubbard, Elbert, 40 
Hughes, James L., 199 
Huntington, ii 
Huxley, 164 
Hyde, 41 

Ideal, the educational, ch. 11 

Industriousness, 211 

Industry, 213 

Initiative, 212 

Instinct, the place of, in moral 

training, 25 
Interest in moral education, revival 

of, I 
Interest of the child, approach to 

the, 86 
International spirit, America and 

the, 102 

James, 28 

-Lange theory, 23 
Jesus as a teacher, 296 
Judgment, moral, opportunity for 
the exercise of, 90 

Kant, 14 

Keller, Helen, 45, 115 

Kirkpatrick, E. A., 26 

Labor, a fortification against vice, 

189 . . .^ 

Life, what makes it significant, 121 

Mann, Horace, 47 
Manual training, appeal to chil- 
dren, 182 



INDEX 



313 



Manual training — Continued 
meaning of phrase as used, 179 
moral instruction through, ch. 

XIII 

McTurnan on personality, 49 

Measurements, 16 

Money, relation of, to spiritual 

values, 220 
Moral requirements, basic, 209 
Morality code, national, 213 
Motion pictures and morals, ch. xix 

experience of one city in solving 
the problem of, 270 

-habit in relation to thrift, 221 

second experiment in solving 
problem of, 271 

third experiment in solving prob- 
lem of, 274 

types of, 269 
Mott, John R., 306 
Music and discipHne, 138 

and patriotism, 138 

and worship, 139 

danger of intellectualizing too 
much, 142 

in penal institutions, 141 

ministry of, ch. x 

Plato upon the place of, 143 

psychologist's attitude towards, 

1.44 
social values of, 134 

Nature study, accuracy and fidelity, 
167 
and health, 167 
and science, moral education 

through, ch. xii 
humane spirit, 168 
in relation to relaxation and 

pleasure, 164 
law and order, respect for, 169 
medicine, relation to, 173 
truth, regard for, 165 
Nietzsche, 308 
Nightingale, Florence, 113 



Oratorios, great, the effect of, 

140 
Origin of life, shall mothers explain, 

242 
Outside work, crediting of, 180 

Palmer, George Herbert, 39 

Pershing, Gen., 301 

Personal examples of moral acts, 

96 
Personality defined, 49 
Pestalozzi's method of developing 

sympathy, 127 
Phonograph, function of, 141 
Physical culture and games, moral 

education through, ch. xiv 
Physical preparedness, 300 
Pictures, Landseer's, 151 
Millet's, 152 
Rembrandt's, 152 
Plato, teachings of, 194 
Play and a physical basis for moral- 
ity, 196 
as a revelation of character, 200 
Playgrounds, supervised, a neces- 
sity, 204 
Psychology, new, influence of, 193 

of moral education, ch. in 
Punctuality, 211 

Punishment, corporal, sometimes 
necessary, 67 
forms of, to avoid, 68 
motives must be considered, 62 
should be reformative, not re- 
tributive, 64 
should be suited to the individ- 
uality of the child, 65 

Quintilian, 195 

Reading and literature, moral edu- 
cation through, ch. vi 
Reading, influence of the teacher's, 

75 
voluntary, 86 



314 



INDEX 



Reading, moral or ethical, 82 
three types of, 77 
wholesome literature, 80 

Red Cross, 24, 34, 305 

Reformatories first to see moral 
values of work, 181 

Relationships, moral, writ large in 
the pages of history, 91 

Religion in art, 153 
revival of, 306 

Reproduction, simple biological 
facts pertaining to, 243 

Results, intellectual, measured, 16 

Riis, Jacob, 115 

Ruskin, 51, 155 

Sacrifice, 305 
School, duty of, 220 

or college, the best thing it does, 
32 
Schoolroom, influence of, 149 
Schools, modern, train for life 
work, 208 
new work of, 309 
Science, in relation to Deity, 174 
Science, reflex influence of study 

of, 163 
Self-control in the teacher, impor- 
tance of, 63 
-reliance, 212 

-support, moral obligation of, 188 
Search, Preston, 38 
Service chief duty of man, 189 
Sex hygiene for early adolescents, 

. 245 . . 

mstruction in relation to moral- 
ity, ch. XVII 
some generally accepted prin- 
ciples, 250 
Smoking, habit of, 211 
Socrates, 14 

Strong, Doctor, his appeal to the 
honor of boys, 45 



Sunday school, strength and limi- 
tations of, 3. 

Tagore, Rabindranath, loi 
Teacher, moral education through 

example and personality of, 

ch. IV 
the ideal, 39 
Teachers, the best, as seen by high 

school students, 50 
Teamwork and moral training, 201 
Temperance, 209 
Tests, scientific, 16 
Thrift and school savings, 226 

reasons for teaching, 219 
Thrift, taught by use of biography, 

237 
teaching of, as moral training, 

ch. XVI 
Thwing, C. F., 38 
Tompkins, Arnold, i, 65 
Treitschke, 308 
Truthfulness, 210 
Tuition, conscious vs. unconscious, 

37 
Tuskegee, a lesson from, 185 

Utilitarianism a present-day con- 
cept, 13 

Victoria Cross, 304 
Vocational direction in Grand 
Rapids schools, 209 
moral education through, ch. xv 

War and science, 173 
Washington, Booker, 115 
Waste paper campaigns, 224 
Waste products, value of, 223 
Will, moral, as highest expression 

of moral life, 33 
Willard, Frances, 114 
Work, ethics of, 214 



